Thirty-Seven (1842)society of Masonic brotherhood, became paranoid at the rising prominence of the city of
Nauvoo and the increasing number of Mormons who moved there every month.
Men’s vain and foolish imaginations began to take hold both within and without the
Church. Joseph knew the events were unfolding that would one day be responsible for his
demise. But instead of running and hiding, Joseph did everything in his power to continue
in his mandated role. He was no longer receiving any direction from the advanced monitors
of his work for the help or benefit of the Saints. He had given the people plenty and had
finally put the last stumbling block of the Endowment in place.
At the funeral of William Marks’ son, Joseph said,
It is a very solemn and awful time. I never felt more solemn; it calls to mind
the death of my oldest brother, Alvin, who died in New York. ...It will be but
a short time before we shall all in like manner be called: it may be the case
with me as well as you. Some have supposed that Brother Joseph could not
die; but this is a mistake; it is true there have been times when I have had the
promise of my life to accomplish such and such things, but, having now
accomplished those things, I have not at present any lease of my life, I am as
liable to die as other men.^70Christ also proclaimed before his own murder, “I have glorified thee on the earth: I
have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.^71 Neither Christian nor Jew understood
that Christ had done everything he was supposed to do upon the earth before he was killed
by his critics and enemies and betrayed by the hand of a friend. In their blindness, they
discounted the “fullness of the everlasting Gospel” that he had delivered to them and put a
greater emphasis on his death, which was nothing more than a symbol of the hypocrisy and
vileness of human nature.
The Saints never knew or understood the “such and such things” (see Joseph’s
funeral quote above) that Joseph finally accomplished during his mortality that then readied
him to be killed by his critics and enemies and betrayed by the hand of a former “friend.”
NOTES
(^1) DHC, 4:550–1.
(^2) “In the evening I received the first degree in Free Masonry in the Nauvoo Lodge,
assembled in my general business office. *** I was with the Masonic Lodge and rose to the
sublime degree.” (DHC, 4:551, 552.)
See also “The Three Degrees of Freemasonry, Master Mason Degree |SIGNIFICANCE OF
THE DEGREE,” Master Mason, 2011, JJ Crowder, 29 Jan. 2012
http://www.mastermason.com/jjcrowder/threedegrees/threedegrees.htm. (Quote below.)
“This Degree is the crown of the Blue Lodge. It is the culmination of all that has been
taught to the candidate in the two preceding ceremonies. At this point the candidate has
symbolically, if not actually, balanced his inner natures and has shaped them into the proper
relationship with the higher, more spiritual parts of himself. His physical nature has been purified