In 1900, Lorin Farr reported
having heard Joseph Smith say something like, “If we knew the condition of the
spirits in the spirit world, thousands would commit suicide to get there.”
Weber Stake High Priests Quorum Minute Book, 1896–1929, series 13, vol. 1,
October 27, 1900, 110. Charles Lowell Walker heard Wilford Woodruff refer to
Joseph teaching “that if the People knew what was behind the vail, they would
try by every means to commit suicide that they might get there, but the Lord in
his wisdom had implanted the fear of death in every person that they might
cling to life and thus accomplish the designs of their creator.” A. Karl Larson
and Katherine M. Larson, eds., The Diary of Charles Lowell Walker (Logan,
UT: Utah State University Press, 1980), 1:465–66. (Timothy G. Merrill and
Steven C. Harper, “‘It Maketh My Bones to Quake’:
Teaching Doctrine and Covenants 85,” Religious Educator 6, no. 2 [2005]: 95 n. 11)
