After we were baptized and confirmed
he turned to my husband and said, 'Now, Adam, it's your turn.' Mr. Lightner
said, 'No, Joseph, I'll wait till I quit smoking. I don't feel worth. I will
some other time.' I thought Joseph could persuade him as he tried hard. As we
walked back to the house my husband went ahead with the baby. Joseph walked by
me and said, 'Mary that man will never be baptized in this life, unless it is a
few moments before he dies.' And though he was only twenty-one then and lived
to be seventy three, crossing the plains, enduring all the hardships, and saw
the prophesies of Joseph fulfilled and often said he would be baptized, still
he never was. He was the kind that looks at the acts of men and lets that
influence him instead of looking at the principles. A few minutes before his death
he seemed to want something and looked all around, then finally settled back
and said 'It's too late now.' I thought he may have been wondering if he could
yet be baptized. So in all of fifty two years the Prophet's pro[p]hecy held
good. Who would think it would. (Diary of Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, 1936, p. 7)
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