Commenting
on Zion’s
Camp, John Tvedtnes wrote:
The Role of
Zion’s Camp
The Twelve and the Seventy are essentially
missionary callings, with responsibility to travel throughout the world and
build up the Church. The first brethren to be called to these positions suffered
many hardships during their travels in North America and Europe. Moving about
without purse or scrip, they were dependent upon the generosity of members and
non-members alike. Enemies of the Church lay in wait for them and two of the
original Twelve were actually assassinated.
In view of the dangers and difficulties they
would encounter while fulfilling their assignments, the Twelve and Seventy had
to be men of great spiritual strength and perseverance. It was important that
they be characterized by faith and by an ability to withstand hardship. Knowing
this, the Lord had, in 1834, commanded the organization of Zion’s Camp, a group
of armed men who went to assist their brethren who were being attacked by mobs
in Jackson County, Missouri. During an assembly of Elders held soon after the
organization of the Twelve and the Seventy, Joseph Smith discussed the role
played by the Zion’s Camp expedition in the organization of the Church:
Brethren, some of you are angry with me,
because you did not fight in Missouri; but let me tell you, God did not want
you to fight. He could not organize His kingdom with twelve men to open the
Gospel door to the nations of the earth, and with seventy men under their direction
to follow in their tracks, unless He took them from a body of men who had
offered their lives, and who had made as great a sacrifice as did Abraham. Now
the Lord has got His Twelve and His Seventy, and there will be other quorums of
Seventies called, who will make the sacrifice, and those who have not made
their sacrifices and their offerings now, will make them hereafter. (Joseph
Smith, Sen., History of the Organization
of the Seventies, 14, cited in a note to History of the Church 2:182)
Critics of the Prophet might see the Zion’s
Camp expedition as a failure. But to Joseph Smith, the purpose of the Camp had
been fulfilled in testing its participants and in preparing for the selection of
the Twelve and the Seventy (the trials endured by the participants in the Zion
Camp expedition may be compared with that of Abraham, recorded in Genesis 22.
Though the Lord commanded Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice, he did not
intend to allow the patriarch to actually kill his son. Rather, it was a test
of his faith). This would explain why President Smith was so quick to discharge
the members of Zion’s Camp upon their arrival in Missouri, without even a
pretense of fighting.
Joseph Smith’s advance knowledge on the
subject of the calling of the Twelve and the Seventy is reflected in his
references to a “vision” that the Lord had given him, to which he alludes in
his remarks on the Seventy just cited. He first mentioned this vision on February
8, 1835, when he asked Brigham and Joseph Young to assemble to the Church for
the purpose of selecting the Twelve and Seventy (Joseph twice referred to the
vision during his discussion with Brigham and Joseph Young. See Joseph Young,
Sen., History of the Organization of the
Seventies, 1-2, cited in a footnote to History
of the Church 2:181). H also spoke of it on the day the Twelve were called,
as recorded in the minutes of the meeting. (“President Smith then stated that
the meeting had been called, because God had commanded it; and it was made
known to him by vision and by the Holy Spirit” (History of the Church 2:182).) It is also mentioned in connection
with the calling of the Seventy in D&C 107:93, revealed on the day of their
calling, March 28, 1835. (John A. Tvedtnes, Organize
My Kingdom: A History of Restored Priesthood [Bountiful, Utah: Cornerstone
Publishing and Distributing, 2000], 89-90)
On the
importance of Zion’s Camp in moulding the then-future leaders of the Church,
Wilford Woodruff, himself a participant therein, said the following in a sermon
in 1869:
All the labors that we have performed from
that day until the present have been by faith, and we, as Latter-day Saints,
should seek to cherish and grow in this principle, that we may have faith in
every revelation and promise and in every word of the Lord, that has been given
in the Bible, Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants, for they will surely
come to pass as the Lord God lives, for the unbelief of this generation will
not make the truths of God without effect.
When the members of Zion's Camp were called,
many of us had never beheld each others' faces; we were strangers to each other
and many had never seen the prophet. We had been scattered abroad, like corn
sifted in a sieve, throughout the nation. We were young men, and were called
upon in that early day to go up and redeem Zion, and what we had to do we had
to do by faith. We assembled together from the various States at Kirtland and
went up to redeem Zion, in fulfilment of the commandment of God unto us. God
accepted our works as He did the works of Abraham. We accomplished a great
deal, though apostates and unbelievers many times asked the question,
"What have you done?" We gained an experience that we never could
have gained in any other way. We had the privilege of beholding the face of the
prophet, and we had the privilege of travelling a thousand miles with him, and
seeing the workings of the Spirit of God with him, and the revelations of Jesus
Christ unto him and the fulfilment of those revelations, And he gathered some
two hundred Elders from throughout the nation in that early day and sent us
broadcast into the world to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Had I not gone
up with Zion's Camp I should not have been here to-day, and I presume that
would have been the case with many others in this Territory. By going there we
were thrust into the vineyard to preach the Gospel, and the Lord accepted our
labors. And in all our labors and persecutions, with lives often at stake, we
have had to work and live by faith. (JOD 13:158 | December 12, 1869)