In 1844/1845, Lucy Mack Smith recalled that Joseph, shortly after Alvin’s burial, that Joseph refused to attend any of the religious revivals at the time. She noted that
He would say Mother I do not wish
to prevent you from going to meeting or joining any church you like or any of
the Family who desire the like only do not ask me to go <do so>
for I do not wish to go But I will take my Bible and go out into the woods and
learn more in two hours than you could if you were to go to meeting two years.
(Lucy
Mack Smith, History, 1844–1845, Page [8], bk. 4)
Adding that:
Now you look at deacon Joseph <Jessup>
& you heart heare him talk very piously well you think he is
a very good man but suppose that Mr. (one of his poor
neighbors) <who had 8 children)> owed him the value
of one cow well this man has eight small children suppose
the poor man should be taken sick & die leaving his wife with one cow
but destitute of every means of support for herself and family Now I
tell you that deacon Joseph Jessup good <religious> as
he is would not hesitate to take the last cow from the widow and
orphans rather than loose the debts although he has an abundance of
everything (Ibid.)
Lucy noted that this seemed impossible to the family at the
time:
This seemed to us at that time
impossible but it was not one year from the time in which it was spoken
when we saw the very act <thing> that was told
transpire before our eyes (Ibid.)
A. Howard North, after discussing this prophecy, concluded
that:
The detail matters because it is
the kind of detail Lucy did not need to invent—the family had remembered the
specific name, Deacon Jessup, and the specific outcome—and this tells us that
by 1825 Joseph was already speaking, occasionally, in the prophetic mode that
would eventually be a daily mode of his life. Hyrum heard him do so. Hyrum saw
the prophecy fulfilled. Hyrum drew a conclusion about his brother. (A. Howard
North, Joseph & Hyrum: Two Brothers, One Restoration [2026], 92-93)
Further Reading:
