Some critics
have argued that Brigham Young never addressed the First Vision and/or was completely
ignorant thereof. For a refutation, see the following from D. Charles Pyle and
Cooper Johnson:
Recent scholarship
on the shorthand records of Brigham’s sermons further refutes this, showing
that he even talked about it in greater detail than previously believed. As
Steven C. Harper noted:
It has long been thought that Brigham Young
alluded to Smith’s vision only occasionally. LaJean Carruth’s recent
translation of shorthand records reveals that Young talked about it more often
and in more detail than previously thought. Young evoked Smith’s vision, for
instance, in an 1855 sermon:
When Joseph first received revelation, the
Lord could not tell him what he was going to do he didn’t tell him he was going
to call him to be a prophet seer revelator high priest and founder of kingdom
of God on earth. Joseph would have said what just what does that mean you are
talking that I can’t understand. He could merely reveal to him that the Lord
was pleased to bless him and forgive his sins and there was a work for him to
perform on the earth and that was about all he could reveal. (Brigham Young,
March 25, 1855. Papers of George D. Watt, MS 4534, box 3, disk 1, images
142-53, Church History Library, Salt Lake City. Transcribed by LaJean Purcell
Carruth, July 2009)
A decade later, Brigham delivered his only
known narrative version of the vision story. His point of emphasis was
the very principle of Joseph Smith asking the
Father in the name of Jesus according to the exhortation of James the Apostle
that was repeated to us this morning, the effect of his asking the Father to
teach him the right way, to show which of all these churches are correct that
he might attach himself to that individual church.
Young continued to make the case that Smith’s
experience proved the promise in James 1:5 that God gives to those who ask.
He did ask he did receive and the heavens
were opened to him and the angels said to him all those that you behold all
those that you hear lo here lo there in there lo younger lo in another place
here is Christ in the wilderness shall I say in our camp meeting here is Christ
in our protracted meeting upon the anxious bench and here is Christ in the silent
chamber where we say nothing and lo here is Christ and lo there the Lord said
to him through that messenger he is not there he is with none of them you will
have to commence entirely anew. Joseph Smith was only a little over 14 years
old this time. (Brigham Young, July 8, 1866, Papers of George D. Watt.
Transcribed by Lajean Purcell Carruth, December 10, 2008; corrected April 13,
2012)
Here, Brigham Young evoked the vision to make
a point about apostate Christianity, situating young Joseph Smith amid
evangelical confusion. (Steven C. Harper, First
Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins [New York: Oxford University Press,
2019], 94-95)
