[TO NANCY RIGDON]
[1842 APRIL]

P. The earliest known source of this document is John C. Bennett's publication of it in the Sangamo Journal on 19 August 1842. Bennett claimed that the original letter was in his possession and was written by Willard Richards at Joseph Smith's dictation (John C. Bennett, The History of the Saints: An Expose' of Joe Smith and Mormonism [Boston, 1842], 243, 245). In November 1855 the letter was copied into the manuscript of Joseph Smith's History under the date of 27 August 1842, by Thomas Bullock, a clerk in the Church Historian's Office. A manuscript copy of the letter in the Joseph Smith Collection places the date of the original writing "about January 1842" and designates it as "Joseph's Letter to Nancy Rigdon."

There are slight differences in the punctuation and word usage in Bennett's two publications of the letter in the Sangamo Journal and his History of the Saints. A comparison shows that the manuscript copy in the Smith Collection and its publication in the Joseph Smith History follows the latter source. With the exception of frequent underlining and capitalization (certainly not a part of the original letter), the text used here is that of the Sangamo Journal.

John C. Bennett—doctor, educator, military man, and writer—was born in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, in 1804. He received his schooling in Ohio and subsequently practiced medicine there and in Virginia. He participated in the founding of the college at New Albany, Indiana, and the medical college at Willoughby, Ohio, where he became Professor of Midwifery, Diseases of Women, and Children, and Medical Jurisprudence. After moving to Illinois in 1838, he practiced medicine, helped found the Illinois State Medical Society, was appointed brigadier general in the Illinois militia and, later, quartermaster general of the state. In 1840 he joined the Latter-day Saints and became closely associated with Joseph Smith, receiving positions of trust in the Mormon community. His influence was instrumental in securing passage of the Nauvoo city charter by the Illinois legislature, and he became Nauvoo's first mayor, a major general in the local militia unit (the Nauvoo Legion), and chancellor of the Nauvoo University.629

Within two years of his meteoric rise to prominence among the Latter-day Saints, Bennett's world collapsed when it was discovered that he had used his influence in the community and his knowledge of the practice of plural marriage in the Church as a guise for immoral purposes. Although the doctrine of plural marriage had been revealed to Joseph Smith as early as 1831, its practice was not introduced to the Church at large until some time later. By 12 July 1843, when the revelation that authorized and defined the principle was put into writing (Doctrine and Covenants 132), the practice had already commenced on a limited basis but had not been publicized.630 When Bennett's licentious conduct was discovered, he was cut off from the Church.

To vent his wrath following his exposure and excommunication, Bennett published a slanderous exposŽ and lectured widely against the Church, focusing particularly upon the practice of plural marriage at Nauvoo. Having been closely associated with prominent men of the community, he had knowledge of Church teachings and practices but portrayed them in a foul light.

Among the writings published by Bennett during this time, however, was an authentic statement by Joseph Smith that exists in no other known source. The 19 August 1842, issue of the Sangamo Journal presented its readers with the following article, which Bennett claimed had been written as a letter by Joseph Smith to Nancy Rigdon after she had refused a proposal of plural marriage to him. John Rigdon, Nancy's brother, later confirmed that such a proposal had taken place, but he made no mention of the letter. When the statement was reproduced in volume 5 of Joseph Smith's History of the Church, B. H. Roberts noted that although the occasion for the writing of the letter seemed clouded, it nevertheless was produced at the time the new law of marriage was being introduced by the Prophet and that it was "very likely" that the letter was written with a view of applying its contents "to the conditions created by introducing said marriage system."631

Happiness is the object and design of our existence, and will be the end thereof if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God. But we cannot keep all the commandments without first knowing them, and we cannot expect to know all, or more than we now know, unless we comply with or keep those we have already received. That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be and often is, right under another. God said thou shalt not kill, at another time he said thou shalt utterly destroy. This is the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted by revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the children of the kingdom are placed. Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, although we may not see the reason thereof till long after the events transpire. If we seek first the kingdom of God, all good things will be added. So with Solomon first he asked wisdom, and God gave it him, and with it every desire of his heart, even things which may be considered abominable to all who do not understand the order of heaven only in part, but which, in reality, were right, because God gave and sanctioned by special revelation. A parent may whip a child, and justly too, because he stole an apple; whereas, if the child had asked for the apple, and the parent had given it, the child would have eaten it with a better appetite, there would have been no stripes all the pleasures of the apple would have been received,632 all the misery of stealing lost. This principle will justly apply to all of God's dealings with his children. Every thing that God gives us is lawful and right, and 'tis633 proper that we should enjoy his gifts and blessings whenever and wherever he is disposed to bestow; but if we should seize upon these same blessings and enjoyments without law, without revelation, without commandment, those blessings and enjoyments would prove cursings and vexations in the end, and we should have to go634 down in sorrow and wailings of everlasting regret. But in obedience there is joy and peace unspotted, unalloyed, and as God has designed our happiness, the happiness of all his creatures, he never has, he never will institute an ordinance, or give a commandment to his people that is not calculated in its nature to promote that happiness which he has designed, and which will not end in the greatest amount of good and glory to those who become the recipients of his laws and ordinances. Blessings offered, but rejected are no longer blessings, but become like the talent hid in the earth by the wicked and slothful servant the proffered good returns of the giver, the blessing is bestowed on those who will receive, and occupy; for unto him that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundantly; but unto him that hath not, or will not receive, shall be taken away that which he hath, or might have had.

"Be wise to-day, 'tis madness to defer.
Next day the fatal precedent may plead;

Thus on till wisdom is pushed out of time," Into eternity. Our heavenly father is more liberal in his views, and boundless in his mercies and blessings, than we are ready to believe or receive, and at the same time is as635 terrible to the workers of iniquity, more awful in the executions of his punishments, and more ready to detect every false way than we are apt to suppose him to be. He will be enquired of by his children he says ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find; but if ye will take that which is not your own, or which I have not given you, you shall be rewarded according to your deeds, but no good thing will I withhold from them who walk uprightly before me, and do my will in all things, who will listen to my voice, and to the voice of my servant whom I have sent, for I delight in those who seek diligently to know my precepts, and abide by the laws of my kingdom, for all things shall be made known unto them in mine own due time, and in the end they shall have joy.