A revelation is received and a temple will be built,

but not before the Saints and their leader will be sorely tried.

I think one of the messages of Kirtland is the faith,

the sacrifice, and the service of early Latter-day Saints.

That’s next on The Joseph Smith papers.

KJZZ television, in cooperation with the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, presents this weekly series highlighting the research of scholars and historians as they prepare for the publication of The Joseph Smith Papers. And now your host, Glenn Rosten. Joseph

Smith once said, “The nearer a person approaches the Lord,

the greater power would be manifest by the devil to prevent the accomplishment of the purposes of God.”

Kirtland was just such a time.

They were promised that if they would build the Kirtland Temple, they would receive great blessings, wonderful privileges.

But before those blessings would come to them,

they would suffer intense opposition, persecution, sacrifice, even martyrdom,

such as those events that came while Joseph and Emma were living in the John Johnson home in Hiram, Ohio.

So the John Johnson farmhouse for six months became a headquarters for the Church.

That would have been in the middle of September 1831, about a year and a half after the Church was organized that he came here.

Now, why did he come here?

I believe he wanted to find a place of peace away from administrative responsibilities,

away from mob activity,

because the Lord had commanded him to translate the Bible.

And that was his major activity.

This home is called the Revelation House.

Half of all the revelations in our Doctrine and Covenants were given while Joseph was in Ohio.

And during about a six-month period while he was living in the John Johnson home,

he received probably 15 revelations that are in our current edition of the Doctrine and Covenants.

Probably the most notable revelation that was received in the Johnson home was Doctrine and Covenants section 76,

because of its uniqueness, because of its profundity.

It was initially known simply as the Vision.

That vision, there are a lot of individuals watching while they experienced what they do. And while they describe things verbally,

up to 12 people in the room are listening to them.

Brigham Young, a few years later, when he first read that revelation, he says,

“Why, God’s going to save everybody.

And he has a hard time with it. It takes Brigham Young some time to accept that. Even though there may be—salvation may be universal, but the final reward might be different for individuals.

That’s a difficult concept. But even more than that,

the fact that Joseph and Sydney claim to see God the Father, and Jesus Christ on His right hand,

that’s a pretty audacious statement.

And that was a little difficult for them to accept.

But whatever the details of that revelation,

it seems that the revelation as a whole created a stir in the community. This hostility against Joseph grew to violence by late March of 1832, which is about six weeks following the revelation.

A group of individuals get together

and organize to mob Joseph. Symonds Ryder is the captain of the local militia,

and he's even a member of the militia in the neighboring town. He’s very interested in the military.

Their claims, plus a few other statements, suggests that they may have thought of this as a militia activity. Yeah.

But whatever they they interpreted for themselves,

there was clearly mob violence.

Joseph and Emma had been up all night with sick children who'd had the measles. Sidney Rigdon and Phoebe Rigdon had six children who also had the measles,

were across the road in a small log cabin. And so they were exhausted, tired. The mob split into two groups.

Half of them went to the Rigdon home, half went to get Joseph Smith.

Symonds Ryder is an apple grower and has a lot of branches piled that are part of his operation. And they seem to take Sidney Rigdon there because Joseph Smith,

they pull out of his home

where he’s at and take him to the same location where Sidney Rigdon’s at.

And he’s able to see Sidney Rigdon there.

But they didn’t coordinate well,

because they can't all do what they're going to do in the same location. So they go find a different location to take Joseph Smith in the meadow.

They leave the door open where they attack him, pull him out.

The exposure of the sick children who are right there by the open door

exacerbates the measles that they already have. And

little Joseph Murdoch,

that’s one of the sick children, gets even worse and he dies shortly after the incident.

They take Joseph out to the road and begin attacking him.

Now they have with them Richard Denison, a local doctor,

and part of his type of doctoring,

you use aqua fortis, which is nitric acid

as a treatment. Nitric acid is a poison,

and it's going to kill you if you drink it.

They plan on forcing this into Joseph and Sidney Rigdon,

or at least Richard Denison plans on giving this to them.

And it gets all over Joseph’s face burns him terribly.

A couple of other vials of the acid are broken in the process, and they put tar all over him and feathers

and send Joseph back home. And they leave,

go back to clean up. The mob members keep this from their families. A lot of their family members are believers.

So they don't want necessarily, you know,

the rest of their family to know that of what they've done.

Joseph gets up, stumbles back home.

Emma sees him, and in the darkness of candlelight,

I think he's all bloody and really maimed.

Later on, he mentions a terrible injury in inside that he received during this process.

His tooth is broken out.

There's a large clump of hair that's missing, Joseph later shows his bald spot to a friend, who writes in his journal

the event. Joseph combs his hair in such a way to hide that permanent bald spot.

This was a vicious attack that left him marred for the rest of his life.

They spend the rest of what remains of the night cleaning him off.

Joseph goes down the street the next morning to the south schoolhouse where he had arranged to preach.

And he gives a sermon despite what's just happened to him.

One of the kids there in that meeting,

she remembers for the rest of her life,

there listening to Joseph Smith, scarred, injured,

standing in front of them, preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ despite what had happened to him. Some of the people in the audience were among the mob members. And it was an incredible act of bravery on Joseph's part to stand there and faithfully deliver

the gospel message without seeking retribution or revenge. What impact, besides the physical, what impact did this have on Joseph and his ministry for that? Or did it change anything about what he did and how he did it?

Because of the mobbing, Joseph recognizes that he’s vulnerable.

He knows he's a man, but he sees that he needs to be more careful.

He has guards often from that point on. Perhaps the first time that Joseph recognizes that

he’s got to be careful because his life may be forfeited in the process of delivering the gospel message.

He’d been harassed; he had been verbally persecuted, ridiculed.

But here he was physically brutalized in a number of ways

and leads on to one of the persistent and perplexing questions of Mormon history.

And that is, Why the intense opposition to Mormons,

wherever they went in these early days?

It's not just contempt or disdain. It's hatred.

They hated the Prophet. They fell on him. They scratched him. They threatened him his life in a variety of ways.

And the surprising thing is that the people who hate him are not thugs. They're not local bullies.

They're people who are fairly respectable in the community.

But something in Joseph Smith aroused the beast,

and they took extreme steps that you would never expect anywhere else. And what's amazing about this is isn't just one place,

but one place after another.

It's the consistent pattern from early on until the prophet's death and the departure of the Saints from

the United States in 1846. So why, why this intensity?

Why this persistent pattern?

Dr. Bushman explains that it's fanaticism.

People naturally tend to fear fanatics,

and Joseph and his people have been labeled as fanatics.

Therefore, you can think of fanaticism as simply

a description of how certain religious groups or political groups work.

These stereotypes simply pull out elements

and use them to describe what they consider to be

the essence of that group.

And fanaticism is one way of describing an essence of a people. Well, Joseph Smith, of course, faces this opposition. This is why he is so fearful,

why, he that is why he strikes fear into the people, because he will not obey the law according to those who understand fanaticism.

And every effort he made to say “we will honor and obey the law,”

it makes that an article of faith.

Every effort he makes to prove his tolerance is in vain.

It's disregarded by these people,

even though he knows he must have resisted.

And of course, this stereotype pursues of this day.

I come out of this marveling that Joseph Smith was able to navigate these waters at all. He was in an impossible position,

terrified of what would happen to his people,

knowing that these dangers are going to arise again

and having no strategy, no workable way of countering them, of preventing all this violence from occurring once more.

So it leaves me with once again,

great admiration for what he had to do for his resolution,

for his wisdom, and for the difficulties that were constantly pursued him to the end of his life.

There in Kirtland, amid the myriad of difficulties that they had already struggled with through 1832 came the command of the Lord to do something that would strain the Saints more than anything else heretofore: build a temple.

The Lord gives a revelation to Joseph Smith in Ohio,

where he says, “I want you to build a temple in Ohio.”

And the implication is this is how Joseph Smith hears Doctrine and Covenants 88. The Saints in Missouri are dragging their feet, and they’re not building the temple.

“I want you to build a temple in Ohio.” The Lord has given us in Kirtland, Ohio, an olive leaf,

meaning by that meaning that the Lord has extended a branch of peace to us.

He has given us an opportunity to build a house, a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of glory.

Joseph is saying that because you have failed thus far in Missouri to obey the commandment of D&C 84, the Lord gave it to us.

It's a bit of a barb.

It's a rebuke the way Joseph sends it to the Saints in Missouri. I’ve never heard that. But it’s important, isn’t it, to understand it that way.

This is the this is the historical understanding of these two revelations and how they fit together and how Joseph understood them.

Joseph understood section 88 of the Doctrine and Covenants as a commandment to him and the Saints in Ohio to build a house of God. And he understood that if they did build a house of God and those other things I mentioned, sanctify yourselves in the process of building it,

the Lord would come to it.

And he explained that over and over to the Saints. He tried hard to get them to appreciate that. The miracle isn’t that it was as hard that the Saints were slow; the miracle is that they did;

the miracle is that they do believe him, that they do buy into it, that they make enormous sacrifices to build that monumental structure.

And the Latter-day Saints really had no concept

of what a temple was.

And after Joseph would receive the revelation, he met with some of the members of the Church.

And so Joseph said, “Now, what’s your

idea of this building?” Some said, “Oh, a log building, a frame building,” you know. And Joseph said: “You have no understanding. We’re going to build a temple,

a temple to the Lord.”

Now, can you imagine when Joseph began

describing this building,

three floors, to a handful of people who were living in the wilderness, and they were thinking in terms of a little log building?

I mean, they just couldn't conceive of a structure such as this. And then Joseph told them, well, basically, he said: “We don’t have an architect, we don’t have builders.

The Lord will reveal to us the information we need to build this temple.”

Not one of them had any real understanding of building a building such as this.

But the people had faith.

They were willing to sacrifice, and they were willing to serve.

And so they used materials in the area,

Stone in the area, wood in the area.

They had to borrow glass nails, but they accomplished a miracle. Can you imagine a handful of people building a structure like this in three years?

That was a principle activity of the people here for three years. And they needed help, so people gathered, and they sacrificed.

Instead of selling their property and coming here and building nice homes, they came here and lived in small huts.

And sometimes people during the construction said: “Joseph,

“Why do we have the choir seats there?

Why do we have the chairs like this?

Why do we have the hall out there?” And Joseph said: “I don’t know. That’s what the Lord told us.

We’re just following the instructions of the Lord.”

Possibly the Lord played a greater role in the design and structure of this building than any other building built by Latter-day Saints.

The temple was built between 1833 and 36, and of course, they were hoping to build of bricks,

but their bricks crumbled as they fired them,

and they were soon in trouble.

Not long after that happened, though,

Artemus Millet arrives from Canada, a new member bringing with them, it seems, a building technique new to the area.

And his idea was to gather pieces of sandstone,

of various sizes and shapes. Using mortar to hold that stone together, they build a wall about two feet thick

and about 45 feet high,

and then immediately apply a hard plaster

or stucco finish to the outside.

And they described it in the 1830s as blue in color. So I really think that means a slate gray.

They had sent out young people together, old crockery and glass that was crushed, even finer, and dumped into the stucco so that when the sun hit it,

it would sparkle brilliantly.

And then to create the illusion of cut stone block,

which would be the most magnificent structure they could put up if they could afford it, which they couldn't.

So to create that illusion, they painted mortar joints on the wall,

painted lines on the stucco. So from a distance, the temple was built of these large cut stone blocks. But if you got too close, you’d discover stucco and paint. The roof of the temple:

wood shingles likely dipped in a red led paint to preserve them.

And the front doors were restored just a few years ago to their original moderate olive-green color.

So it was a pretty colorful temple early on,

unfortunately, toned down through the years.

But structurally, what you see today really survived, amazingly intact.

The Kirtland house of the Lord, as it was called in Joseph’s day,

has several unique and interesting structural features. For example,

the tiered pulpits located at the west and east ends of the temple’s interior and

the canvas veils that were used to add to the temple’s functionality.

They also installed in this room— they’re not gone—what they call veils or partitions,

simply room dividers here that become something different in Nauvoo. But the plan here and actually completed here,

mansion canvas painted heavily white on both sides,

as heavy as sails to a ship, operated like theater curtains.

It's a 1950s description.

They talk of ropes and pulleys and canvas and a wooden roller on the bottom of the canvas for weight that would drop into the openings between the few boxes that run east–west,

as well as the openings running north–south.

So one large worship space would become four small ones.

They also could divide off around in between each level of the pulpits for privacy in which to study or pray.

So the weight of the canvas suspended from the small metal hooks and then a system of ropes and pulleys that would raise and lower the canvas.

The system out here in the congregation would be used most often for Thursday prayer meetings. They fill up the room, drop the curtains,

put an elder in each corner, and have four meetings going at the same time.

The Kirtland Temple was begun in 1833,

and it was finished in 1836.

It is worthy of note that when the temple was designed,

there were going to be three temples built in that area of Kirtland, not just one.

This map here, this is a plat map for the city of

Kirtland. They were going to redesign the streets, of course, to fit this plan. And notice, if you will,

right in the middle of the center block is

a grouping of three buildings. Now, these three buildings,

as identified in the revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants, were to be three temples for Kirtland. We only speak of the one temple,

but there was actually three temples planned and

designed to reach this degree.

And the Kirtland Temple was built for multiple reasons.

That is, the Church needed

a building to accommodate several services for the Church.

One was a Sunday meeting place. And so it was designed to accommodate the Saints on

the Sabbath to worship.

It was also designed to serve the Church as a school,

a schoolhouse. And the revelation that talks about the Kirtland Temple speaks of it as a school. We have two other temples to be built or houses of the Lord. They were recall, actually,

or houses of the Lord or houses in the revelations.

And they were to accommodate the special needs also.

The second temple, or house of the Lord, in Kirtland would be a Church office building for the Presidency, an administration building.

And that's where Joseph would eventually administer the affairs of the Church from Kirtland, at least for a temporary period of time.

And then the third temple, or house of the Lord, next to it was to be a Church printing house. Now, needless to say, the second two temples are not built.

Bit by bit, that temple inches upward. There are seasons where they’re lax; they don’t get started on it right away.

The Lord rebukes them in later sections of the Doctrine and Covenants. And then they get started, and they build it, and they they go on Zion's camp. But the work slows down. But by the early weeks of 1836, that temple is approaching completion.

In the winter of 1836, as they’re building up

towards the dedication of the of the temple in late March,

one of the items of business that occupied what seems like an inordinate amount of time was developing rules of conduct when you were to be in that temple structure.

And they debated them.

They talked about them at great length,

finally developed a set of nine rules, such as no marring the furniture. You were not to carve your initials in the benches, please.

You're not to go up and down the stairs. Children are not to play around.

There's to be no laughing or whispering, please.

Well, things are going on. And you were not to insult the speaker,

if you possibly could avoid it.

And as these rules were presented,

Joseph Smith made one of those comments that seems extravagant.

It sort of fits into the notion of Joseph Smith as an exorbitant personality who went to all extremes.

What he said was, “Our rules will have a bearing.

These little nine rules about playing on the stairs will have a bearing upon all mankind and upon all generations to come.”

It seems disproportionate to make that heavy claim:

a bearing upon all mankind and all generations to come.

When you're talking about not carving up up the benches,

I know when a space is a sacred space by how it's treated.

And one of the one of the universal signs of a sacred space is people take care.

They take care of that space just as their sacred time in

a week devoted to the Lord,

we have sacred space devoted to the Lord.

And I think the genius or the inspiration or the glory of our temples in creating sacred space begins with the Prophet, who knew that these little rules about taking care

would have implications for mankind

for many generations to come.

As much as there needed to be a sacred place,

there also needed to be a sanctified people prepared to enter therein.

So Joseph labored diligently to prepare the people for a blessing that he said would be worth remembering.

He encouraged the Saints: “Don’t watch for iniquity in each other.

If you do, you will not get an endowment, for God will not bestow it on such.

The endowment,” he said,

“was that you may be prepared and able to overcome all things.”

For Joseph Smith and the early Latter-day Saints, the

primary purpose for the Kirtland Temple was to hold a special, solemn assembly in the temple in which

the ordained priesthood officers of the Church would receive an endowment of power from on high.

Joseph Smith received a revelation

that said: “You shall go to the Ohio.

And there I will give you my law, and I will endow you with power from on high.”

This is one of the revelations of January 1831

right before they leave New York and they moved to Ohio the next year, 1832.

There’s a revelation that says, commands them to build a house of the Lord in Kirtland and

that they should hold a solemn assembly inside this temple.

Now in the next year, 1833,

you have a revelation that brings all this together.

It admonishes the Saints to finish the house of the Lord

so they can hold the solemn assembly,

so they can receive the endowment of power from on high. I see. So this is what Joseph Smith is trying to get everybody ready for. He’s not—

we focus so much on the dedication, but he's not dedicating the temple in order to have this wonderful dedication meeting. The point is to dedicate the temple so it can be used to hold the solemn assembly to receive the endowment of power.

The Kirtland Temple documents that are most familiar to us today are those that are associated with the actual dedication, sections 109 and 110 of the Doctrine and Covenants. They speak of the coming of the Savior, of Moses, Elias, and Elijah.

But with regards to the Kirtland Temple,

there's more much more that needs to be told.

Next week on The Joseph Smith Papers, the solemn assembly,

the dedication, visions, visitations,

and the endowment of power. I'm Glenn Rossen.

Thanks for joining us.