Page:The Rocky Mountain Saints.djvu/94

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CHAPTER X.

TWELVE APOSTLES CHOSEN.—Quorums of "Seventies" organized—They go abroad and preach—Kirtland Temple finished Dedication and Endowment—Joseph's Wonderful Vision of the Celestial Kingdom—A second Pentecost—Brigham Young "speaks in Tongues"—The Temple filled with Angels—Joseph and Cowdery are visited by Moses, Elias, and Elijah—They behold "The Lord"—Cowdery afterwards apostatizes.

Laying aside for a time the sword and buckler, the Prophet betook himself to the olive branch, and meditated the greater expansion of the kingdom by the preaching of the Gospel. He had all the winter of 1834–5 in Kirtland to prepare for the spring campaign. His Missouri mission had taught him something. If he had not thrown down towers, he had at least picked up a lesson. Miraculous interference was all good enough to predict and talk about, but facts are accomplished by organization. From that time to the day of his death his brain was never free from an organizing scheme of some sort. Mormonism was henceforth not to "lay around loose" and depend upon the heavens alone, it was to be a working organism. The Christian Church began with the choosing of the Twelve Apostles. Joseph had followed no definite plan since his Church was organized. It was now time to choose his "Twelve,"[1] and send them to "all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, to preach the Gospel of the New Covenant." On the 4th of February, 1835, the selection was made in the following order: Lyman E. Johnson, Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Orson Hyde, David W. Patten, Luke Johnson, William E. McLellin, John F. Boynton, Orson Pratt, William

  1. In his public sermons, Brigham frequently announces that he is an Apostle of Joseph Smith. It is his theory that "the Kingdom was given unto Joseph."