The First Vision is clearly one of the major images or symbols of the restoration. We reference the image of a pillar of light regularly in our literature, although I sometimes think that we don’t use the image as broadly as we might—the pipe-like image of delivering revelation, the brightness in the midst of darkness, the enlightening of a specific portion of the world, etc., could give the writer a lot to work with.

Regardless, the third lesson of this year’s Come Follow Me curriculum focuses on the concepts clarified in Joseph Smith’s description of his experience in the sacred grove. And LDS poets have not neglected the First Vision or his early experiences. Not only do the discussions of the First Vision include short musings like William Mulder’s Restoration (provided as part of last week’s lesson) and William Willis’ The Prophet, Joseph Smith (see below) and many, many others, Joseph Smith is the subject of epics and long poems, from Eliza R. Snow’s Historical Sketch of the Life of President Joseph Smith (a portion of which was provided for the first lesson) to Orson F. Whitney’s Elias, to more recent works like S. Dilworth Young’s The Long Road From Vermont to Nauvoo, Orson Scott Card’s Prentice Alvin and the No-Good Plow, and Zachary Hutchins forthcoming Joseph: Awakenings and New Covenants.

In addition to the wonderful imagery of the event itself, the First Vision answers, as the lesson points out, some of the questions that Joseph Smith and many others had in mind in 1830, and led to other questions that we have today. The sections in the lesson address some of these questions.

As always, I suggest that anyone reading poetry as part of a lesson choose carefully what to read and how much to read — short excerpts are likely better than reading entire poems.

 

Joseph Smith is the Prophet of the Restoration

The role of a Prophet is a broad one, covering many tasks and responsibilities, and the role of Joseph Smith, as the initial prophet of the Restoration is even more substantial. The following poem gives a taste of the breadth of Joseph’s work. It’s also quite unusual, since it was written in Calcutta, India by William Willis, one of the LDS missionaries sent there in the 1850s. The poem was published in the Millennial Star, published in England.

 

The Prophet, Joseph Smith

by William Willis

Say, Who beheld the pious rage

‘Mong sects in this enlightened age,

And saw them differ, foam, and rage?

The Prophet, Joseph Smith,

Who made the resolution rare

To ask the Lord in secret prayer,

“Which sect did all the truth declare?”

The Prophet, Joseph Smith.

Who was encompassed and assailed

By powers of darkness, yet ne’er quailed

And wrestled until he prevailed?

The Prophet, Joseph Smith.

Who saw the Lord descend and say,—

“Hear thou my son, he’ll show the way,

“If you will now his laws obey?”

The Prophet, Joseph Smith.

Who took the Plates the angel shewed,

And brought them from their dark abode,

And made them plain by power of God?

The Prophet, Joseph Smith.

Who did receive the power to raise

The Church of Christ in Latter-days,

And call on men to mend their ways?

The Prophet, Joseph Smith.

Who bore the scorn, the rage, the ire,

Of those who preach for filthy hire,

Was called by them “Impostor, Liar?”

The Prophet, Joseph Smith.

Who brought the truth of God to view,

And led God’s faithful people through,

And built the city of Nauvoo?

The Prophet, Joseph Smith.

Who fell by ruthless mobbers’ hands?

Whose heart’s-blood stained Columbia’s land?

Who died fulfilling Christ’s command?

The Prophet, Joseph Smith.

Calcutta, 1852

 

How can I receive answers to my prayers?

While Joseph Smith found an answer to this question in the scriptures, both he and many others continued to struggle with how to get answers. Grace Ingles Frost, one of the prolific LDS poets of the first part of the 20th century, was one of those who struggled, as she suggests in her poem:

Prayers

by Grace Ingles Frost

When first my prayer brought unto me no answer,

I questioned much the wherefore, could not see

Why God should heed another one’s petition,

And give not that which I desired to me.

One day there came unto my soul a vision,

I heard those prayers repeated one by one,

That I bewailed, – they terminated always,

“O Father, not my will but thine be done.”

And then, there came another repetition

Of prayers that once had answered seemed to be,

I viewed them each in turn and comprehended:

Unanswered prayers had needful been for me.

When now my prayers remain to me unanswered,

I question not, the years have given to me

This knowledge: God knows all, I’ve but to trust Him,

And He will send whate’er is best for me.

1919

 

Joseph Smith saw God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.

Another of the many poetic portrayals of the First Vision, this poem first appeared in the Young Woman’s Journal in 1890.

Reflections

by Cactus

I turn back the pages of time tonight,

To a day not long ago,

And I see a child of fifteen years

In a forest kneeling low.

Thro’ the echoing aisles of the dim old woods,

His voice, so low and clear,

Is craving Heaven his steps to guide,

That wrong he may shun and fear.

I see the powers of darkness seek,

His soul to terrify,

I see those powers put to flight,

By Him who dwells on high;

Whose mighty voice, thro’ the forest deep,

Echoes like sacred hymn,

The words, “This is my beloved son,

Joseph, hear thou Him.”

And I see the youth, to manhood grown,

With authority divine,

To restore to earth the gospel true

Withdrawn in the olden time.

Go forth on his mission of life and love,

Mankind to bless and save.

From the dust the ancients speak again,

Of their thoughts and deeds so brave.

“Repent, repent,” is the joyful cry.

“God’s kingdom is at hand,

The truth restored, ne’er again to fall;

Go tell it in every land.”

And the little stone from the mountain cut.

Tho’ not with living hand,

Is gath’ring size with the fleeting years,

And stronger grows our band.

What tho’ our Prophet, just and true,

A Martyr’s crown doth wear:

What tho’ our rights are trampled on,

Have we more than we can bear?

With the glorious prize of Heaven in view,

Should hearts be e’er cast down,

Our living faith grow cold and dead,

At sight of a tyrants frown?

In the gloomy days of troubles past,

Our God has been our friend,

Whate’er the future, if we are true,

His promised aid He’ll lend.

The arts of foes we do not fear,

Their treachery or fraud;

We’d teach them, tho’, would they but hear,

Their battle is with God.

1890

 

Why are there various accounts of the First Vision?

This is certainly one of the modern questions that rises because of what we know of the First Vision.  I think this question is a bit like the problems all of us have in getting information from friends and other sources — which often conflict and confuse. Perhaps the following poem will help. It is by Joseph L. Townsend, most remembered today for the hymn Choose the Right.

My Friends and I

by J. L. Townsend

I meet with my friends,

I talk with my friends,

And list to the counsel they give;

And plain ’tis to me

That they’ll never agree

Just how I should prosper and live.

One friend says, “Be manly and hold up your head;”

“Not so,” says another, “be humble instead;”

One says, “By all means you must build self-esteem;”

Another, “Don’t do it, too proud you will seem.”

To meet each half way, I strive to do neither,

While each in his doctrine thinks me a believer.

A friend, whose hours fly in the autumn of life,

Who loves to debate, and who glories in strife,

Declares that ’tis noble to stand like a man,

And vanquish by word or by deed when you can.

Another declares that the lowly and meek

Are patterns of manliness that I should seek.

I please both my friends, while between them I move,

And leave the extremes as their hobbies to prove.

One friend loves to give, and another to take;

One talks of benevolence much for my sake;

The other, acquisitive, labors for gain.

And tells me to hoard, for to-morrow ’twill rain.

I keep what I wish, and I give what I please.

Nor burn to bestow, nor most miserly freeze.

To justify self, all my friends thus construe

The bent of their minds as the right thing to do;

The lazy, the active, the student, the fool,

Would each have me live by his self-imposed rule.

So opposite attributes govern the mind,

Predominant traits rule all others combined.

The saint and the sinner, the moralist, too,

The atheist, strong in his narrower view,

The drunkard, the glutton, the bully, the coward.

Is each in his way by his passions o’erpowered;

While thinking that manliness perfect is shown

When answ’ring the standard he builds as his own.

Belong they to age, or to earlier youth.

Let not our conceptions be standards of truth;

We learn in our pride but to unlearn in sorrow;

The wise of to-day are the fools of to-morrow.

The thoughts that we hold, though they noble may seem,

Must soon pass away like an afternoon dream;

And they who aspire to be noble and true,

Aloft must be looking, with Heaven in view;

Divine is the life that we wish to attain,

Or else were our morals and hopes all in vain;

Divine then must be, from divinity’s source,

The precepts and doctrines that mark out our course;

Divine must the pattern of manliness be

To which in conforming from self we are free.

And I have one Friend, who, in wisdom and love,

Is noblest of all in the Heavens above,

Who counsels and doctrines abundant doth give,

To tell me just how I should prosper and live;

And ever to suit all contingencies given,

Are bright admonitions to guide me to Heaven.

1880

 

I can remain true to what I know, even if others reject me.

Another very difficult question, and not one I’m sure that anyone can answer clearly. There are likely other poems that address this question as well, but this one does point out one way of approaching truth — relying first on faith instead of on wisdom or logic. Even today this is a controversial approach, one that can lead to bad decisions if we do not have real wisdom from God—which can happen even if we think we are relying on Him.

True Wisdom

by J. W. R.

I HOLD, that the true age of wisdom is when

We are boys and girls, and not women and men:

When as credulous children, we know things because

We believe them—however averse to the laws.

It is faith, then, not science and reason, I say.

That is genuine wisdom—and would that today

We, as then, were as wise and ineffably blest

As to live, love and die, and trust God for the rest.

1891