If it seems still more surprising that Smith's associates placed so little restraint on his business schemes, it must be remembered that none of his early colaborers--Rigdon, Harris, Cowdery, and the rest--was a better business man than he, and that he absolutely brooked no interference. It was Smith who decided every important step, as, for instance, the land purchases in and around Nauvoo; and men who would let him originate were compelled to let him carry out. We have seen how useless better business men like the Laws found it to argue with him on any practical question. The length to which he dared go in discountenancing any restriction, even regarding his moral ideas, is illustrated in an incident related in his autobiography.* At a service on Sunday, November 7, 1841, in Nauvoo, an elder named Clark ventured to reprove the brethren for their lack of sanctity, enjoining them to solemnity and temperance. "I reproved him," says the prophet, "as pharisaical and hypocritical, and not edifying the people, and showed the Saints what temperance, faith, virtue, charity, and truth were. I charged the Saints not to follow the example of the adversary non-mormons in accusing the brethren, and said, 'If you do not accuse each other, God will not accuse you. If you have no accuser, you will enter heaven; if you will follow the revelations and instructions which God gives you through me, I will take you into heaven as my back load. If you will not accuse me, I will not accuse you. If you will throw a cloak of charity over my sins, I will over yours--for charity covereth a multitude of sins. What many people call sin is not sin. I do many things to break down superstition."' A congregation that would accept such teaching without a protest, would follow their leader in any direction which he chose to indicate. * Millennial Star, Vol. XVIII, p. 743. Smith was the farthest possible from being what Spinoza has been called, "a God-intoxicated man." Real reverence for sacred things did not enter into his mental equipment. A story illustrating his lack of reverence for what he called "long-faced" brethren was told by J. M. Grant in Salt Lake City. A Baptist minister, who talked much of "my dee-e-ar brethren," called on Smith in Nauvoo, and, after conversing with him for a short time, stood up before Smith and asked in solemn tones if it were possible that he saw a man who was a prophet and who had conversed with the Saviour. "'Yes,' says the prophet, 'I don't know but you do; would you not like to wrestle with me?' After he had whirled around a few times, like a duck shot in the head, he concluded that his piety had been awfully shocked."* * Journal of Discourses, Vol. III, p. 67.