History of the Prophet Joseph, by His MotherSmith, Lucy
History
History of the Prophet Joseph, by His Mother
Smith, Lucy
Smith, Joseph, Jr., 1805-1844
The lights were immediately extinguished, yet he continued to harangue
them boisterously, until he discovered that his audience had left him.
They seemed to believe what he said, and fled in every direction,
leaving us again to ourselves.
Between twelve and one o'clock, Calvin Stodard and his wife, Sophronia,
arrived at our house. Calvin said he had been troubled about us all
the afternoon, and, finally, about the setting of the sun, he told
Sophronia that he would even then start for her father's if she felt
inclined to go with him.
Within an hour after their arrival, Samuel came. He was much fatigued,
for he had traveled twenty one miles after sunset. I told him our
situation, and that I wished him to go early the next morning to
Canandaigua, and procure his fathers release from the dungeon. "Well,
mother," said he, "I am sick; fix me a bed, that I may lay down and
rest myself, or I shall not be able to go, for I have taken a heavy
cold, and my bones ache dreadfully."
However, by a little nursing and some rest, he was able to set off by
sunrise, and arrived at Canandaigua at ten o'clock. After informing
the jailor of his business, he requested that his father might be
immediately liberated from the cell. The jailor refused, because it was
Sunday, but permitted Samuel to go into the cell, where he found my
husband confined in the same dungeon with a man committed for murder.
Upon Samuel inquiring what his treatment had been, Mr. Smith replied as
follows:
Immediately after I left your mother, the men by whom I was taken
commenced using every possible argument to induce me to renounce
the Book of Mormon, saying, "how much better it would be for you
to deny that silly thing, than to be disgraced and imprisoned,
when you might not only escape this, but also have the note back,
as well as the money which you have paid on it." To this I made no
reply. They still went on in the same manner till we arrived at the
jail, when they hurried me into this dismal dungeon. I shuddered
when I first heard these heavy doors creaking upon their hinges;
but then I thought to myself, I was not the first man who had been
imprisoned for the truth's sake; and when I should meet Paul in the
Paradise of God, I could tell him that I, too, had been in bonds
for the Gospel which he had preached. And this has been my only
consolation.
From the time I entered until now, and this is the fourth day, I
have had nothing to eat, save a pint basin full of very weak broth;
and there [pointing to the opposite side of the cell] lies the
basin yet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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