Introduction ⎜ Part 1 ⎜ Part 2 ⎜ Part 3 ⎜ Part 4 ⎜ Part 5 ⎜ Part 6 ⎜ Part 7 ⎜ Part 8 ⎜ Part 9 ⎜ Part 10 ⎜ Part 11 ⎜ Part 12 ⎜ Part 13 ⎜ Part 14 ⎜ Part 15 ⎜ Part 16 ⎜ Part 17 ⎜ Part 18 ⎜ Part 19 ⎜ Part 20 ⎜ Addendum
When Latter-day Saint historians name those they view as the leading or most prominent and influential of all the men who have served as counselors in the First Presidency, along with names such as Heber C. Kimball, George Q. Cannon, Joseph F. Smith, and Gordon B. Hinckley, President J. Reuben Clark stands with them. So many of his protégé’s have spoken so highly of him: Presidents Lee, Romney, Packer, Monson, and Hinckley to name but a few. He moved directly from high government service to even higher church responsibility. I could take pages extolling his contributions to the work of the Lord in the latter days, but such would steer wide of the purpose of this piece. Suffice it to say that President Clark’s teachings and thoughts and witness place him as one of the foremost figures in the Church:
Testimony as related by Elder Glen L. Rudd:
About thirty years ago I received a phone call in my office at Welfare Square from Elder Harold B. Lee. He wanted me to drop everything and come immediately to his office. When I arrived, he introduced me to a very splendid gentleman from England. He was a member of the British cabinet—the solicitor general of Great Britain. He was a man in his early fifties. Brother Lee took this gentleman and me into the First Presidency’s reception room where we were joined by President J. Reuben Clark, Jr. of the First Presidency. President Clark was past ninety ears of age and was having difficulty walking. However, he was in complete control of his faculties. He seated Brother Lee at one end of the large table in this room, and me at the other end. He sat on one side at the middle of the table and asked the gentleman from England to sit directly across from him. I thought to myself, “What will they talk about? I am sure he will ask how the Prime Minister is and how legal matters are going in Great Britain.” I thought that President Clark, being interested in international affairs, might ask about those matters. However, President Clark, without any apologies and without any hesitation, began to bear his testimony of the reality of the First Vision. He told in simple terms how and why Joseph, as a boy, went into the Sacred Grove. He then told what actually happened, how Joseph knelt in prayer and how the power of Satan almost overcame him. Then President Clark told of the light appearing and the appearance of God the Father and the Son. Never once did he apologize or say, “We believe this.” He spoke in absolute facts and in such a manner that the three of us listening were completely captivated by the simplicity in which he told this marvelous experience. At that moment I thought nobody on this earth could deny that testimony. The man from England listened intently. President Clark spoke with great intent. It was a great moment in my life as I listened to a ninety-year old prophet of God tell the magnificent account of one of the greatest events that has ever taken place on this earth. I am sure the man from England never forgot that great experience. I surely have not and quite likely never will.[1]
President Clark speaking:
A boy fourteen years of age, Joseph Smith, with the innocence of Samuel ministering before the Lord in the Tabernacle at Shiloh, and with the trust of David, sling-armed, facing Goliath, was seeking truth,—the truth of immortality and eternal life.
A great religious revival among the sects of his neighborhood, a concourse of seekers for truth, had come together. The ministers were contending one against another. It was "a scene of great confusion and bad feeling ensued," said the boy. Some of his family had joined the Presbyterians; he was inclined to the Methodists. But, said he, "so great were the confusion and strife among the different denominations," so torn in spirit was he with this "war of words," that he could not make up his mind what to do.
Reading one day in Holy Writ, he chanced on the words of James:
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
"Never," says he, "did any…scripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine." He pondered, as best his youthful mind allowed, upon his own lack of knowledge and the promise of James. At last, it came certainly to him, he must do as James bid, and ask God.
Now let Joseph tell his own story:
So, in accordance with this, my determination to ask of God, I retired to the woods to make the attempt. It was on the morning of a beautiful, clear day, early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty. It was the first time in my life that I had made such an attempt, for amidst all my anxieties I had never as yet made the attempt to pray vocally.
After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction.
But, exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction—not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being—just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me.
It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound. When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name, and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!
My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right—and which I should join.
I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: ‘they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.’
He again forbade me to join with any of them; and many other things did he say unto me which I cannot write at this time. When I came to myself again, I found myself lying on my back, looking up into heaven. When the light had departed, I had no strength; but soon recovering in some degree, I went home.
So did the Father and Son open the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times, by a personal appearance to the boy Joseph.
From that sacred hour in the grove, Satan never forgot Joseph for a moment until his murderers had finished their work, and never to this day has Satan forgotten Joseph’s mission and work. Slander, vilification, falsehood, persecution, plunderings, whippings, mobbings, law courts, jails, were daily piled upon Joseph for a quarter of a century, and then he was massacred by a mob, against the wrath of whom a Governor had solemnly promised to protect him. Joseph died a martyr to the cause to truth, sealing his testimony with his blood, the highest proof mortal can give of his own belief in the cause he espouses.
The holy vision in the grove, ushering in this Last Dispensation of the Fullness of Times, with the Father and Son present in person, marked the opening of the last chapter of the mortality of men. It was one of the greatest hours of all time, surpassed only by the hours that saw the birth, life, death, and resurrection of the Only Begotten, the Son.
God was present, in voice, at the baptism of Jesus, when the Holy Ghost was also manifest,—the only time in recorded scriptures when the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost all manifested themselves at the same time and place to the physical senses of man. The Father manifested himself, but in voice only, at the time of the transfiguration, when Peter, James, and John were on the Mount with Jesus and again, in voice only, in the Temple on the third day of the week of the atoning sacrifice, when the Father comforted the Son in distress over the approaching crisis. Thereafter, on this hemisphere after the resurrection, when Christ, descending from heaven in resurrected body, visited the Nephites, the Father introduced him by voice only to the assembled multitude.
Each time the Father has introduced the Son, he has declared the Sonship of the Only Begotten. As John the Baptist baptized Jesus while others stood on the river bank, the Father declared to Jesus: "Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." At the transfiguration, the Father said to Peter, James, and John: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him." And to the people on this hemisphere, the Father proclaimed: "Behold my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified my name—hear ye him."
And now, to the boy, praying in the woods on that bright spring morning, the Father, calling the youth by name, pointed to the Son, and said: "This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!"
Atheists have jeered at the naivete of the boy’s story, and at the credulity of them who believe in him. To those who so jeer, it need only be said: Repent and turn to God, lest his judgments come upon you.
Others, professing Christ, have ridiculed the fact that God and the Son should come to a boy. But is this stranger than that the Lord should come to young Samuel in the temple after nightfall, and call Samuel to his service, or that the spirit of the Lord should rest upon the youth David, to the performance of his task?
Others have scoffed at his struggle with the evil power, and at his coming to, lying upon his back upon the ground, at the shaft of light, at the appearances of the heavenly beings, and at his weariness, declaring that all this was but an epileptic fit.
But what will these scoffers say of the experience of Saul, of the light that shone about him, of his falling to the ground, of his blindness, so that he must be led by the hand, of his extreme exhaustion? Will any Christian dare characterize that as an epileptic fit?
And what of Daniel’s experience, when his vision came to him, when he was left without strength, fell into a deep sleep on his face which was towards the ground, when the personage spoke to him, and gave him commands, and then afterwards Daniel was strengthened. Was this, too, epilepsy?
Was Jacob’s wrestling with the Lord, at the time the Lord gave him the name of Israel, and he saw God face to face,—an epileptic fit?
When at the time of the transfiguration, a great light appeared, and heavenly beings appeared, with whom Jesus talked, while Peter, James, and John slept, and awakened confused, but saw the glory of these beings? Was this, too, a fit?
When Jesus went to the Garden to pray on the night of the betrayal, while Peter, James, and John waited "a stone’s cast" away, and falling to the ground on his face, he prayed: "Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt." Was this reality, or some physical impairment?
And what of Stephen, the first martyr of the Primitive Church, who, responsive to the enquiry of the high priest, bore his testimony of the Christ to the Council of the Jews, and they hearing and frenzied by Satan "gnashed on him with their teeth," and he, "being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God." Are Christians ready to dismiss this as epilepsy, or as an hallucination? And before they answer yes, let them listen and try to hear the crunching of Stephen’s bones as the mob stoned this martyr to death, Saul witnessing; let them try to vision Stephen, with pain-taut, agonized features, as his spirit struggled to be free, but with glorious exaltation in his eyes, crying out as he neared death:
Lord Jesus, receive my spirit…. Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
And what of Pentecost, and the "sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind," and the coming "unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them," and of their speaking in tongues, being filled with the Holy Ghost, and then the great multitude, "devout men, out of every nation under heaven," each hearing the Apostles’ testimony in his own tongue, saying among themselves, what meaneth this, and some, mocking, declaring: "These men are full of new wine." Was this, too, epilepsy, a mob hallucination? Deny the verity of this, Christians who can, and then try to get on your knees and pray to God, through our mediator, Jesus Christ.
The vision of Joseph, when he saw the Father and the Son, was real, just as all these we have named were real. It was not the vagary or hallucination of a disease-preyed mind. Joseph saw, even as Moses saw,—the one no less certainly than the other.
The Spirit hath borne its witness to me of this, and I so declare, in the name of the Son. Amen.[2]
With no more fanfare than marked the coming of the prophets of old from the homes of the lowly and humble, we come to the First Vision.
Pardon the details I give, but I think they must be in our minds. The purpose of Joseph’s prayer in the grove was his desire to learn which of the various contending sects was right. The power of evil finally deserting Joseph, he asked the two glorious personages standing above him, the Father and the Son He had introduced, which of the sects he should join. He says:
I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: ‘they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.’
He again forbade me to join with any of them; and many other things did he say unto me, which I cannot write at this time (Joseph Smith—History 1:19–20).
So the vision closed. The world had ripened in spiritual apostasy and iniquity. The curtain had risen on the dispensation of the fulness of times, which would bring the refreshing, the restitution, and the restoration promised by Peter and John in the temple, for this was God’s prime concern for His children.
Following the First Vision, events moved as rapidly as the unschooled, untrained, unprejudiced mind of Joseph could proceed. Joseph was 14 years old, not so young by years as was Samuel when called by the Lord to take over from Eli, nor was he more unschooled than the humble fishermen called from their nets on the shores of Galilee, nor more untrained than were they, and not by far so prejudiced as those men who were themselves steeped, with their ancestors for generations before them, in the beliefs and rituals of the Mosaic law. All were minds in virgin innocence of doctrines and principles of the gospel to be restored and of the priesthood to be bestowed. But God had again set His hand to the plow. There would be no forsaking the furrow He was now turning over in the field of humanity. He again drove ahead, for His work and His glory was “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”
As soon as physical maturity came to Joseph sufficient to meet the trials and hardships that were to be his, there came first a visit of Moroni, a messenger “sent from the presence of God” to prepare Joseph for the translation of the Nephite records and the bringing forth of them as the Book of Mormon. Moroni told Joseph regarding the book “that the fulness of the everlasting Gospel was contained in it, as delivered by the Savior to the ancient inhabitants” (Joseph Smith—History 1:33–34).
The record containing this fulness was in due time delivered to Joseph, was translated and printed so men could read once more the unpolluted words of God.
The essential purpose of all previous dispensations—the restoration of the pure gospel of Jesus Christ—had at this point been reached.[3]
(See also the next installment, #10, for Pres. Clark’s teachings about being a latter-day saint and accepting the First Vision.)
Endnotes
This article is cross-posted with the permission of the author, Dennis B. Horne, from the blog at truthwillprevail.xyz.
Thank you for this series. Pres. Clark is one of my all-time favorite Church leaders. (I know we’re not supposed to have favorites, but we all do.) Personally, I think he’s due for another serious biography, one that will introduce him to millions of Church members around the globe that are not familiar with this mighty pillar of the restored Gospel.
A high regard for Pres. Clark puts you (and others like you) in lofty company among past and current Brethren.
Pres. Packer concluding:
President Clark came to the First Presidency virtually unknown in the Church. He had held no administrative positions, even on the local level.
He kept things very plain and simple. The president of Equitable Life once sent him a speech. President Clark replied, “A lot of it was over my head [trying to understand it], but I sort of held my breath and struggled to the top. . . . I accept your conclusions whether or not I fully understand the reasons, and I congratulate you on another fine speech.”
I can imagine President Clark in his library with words scattered about on his desk. I see him discarding the longer ones and then picking up a word and fitting it into a sentence and then replacing it with one easier to understand. From words he made sentences, often very long ones, fastening them together into paragraphs and bundling them together into his inspired sermons.
https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1026&context=life_law_vol2
As told by President Boyd K. Packer:
Less than a month after my 37th birthday, I was sustained as a General Authority. On October 6, 1961, I was set apart in the council room by the First Presidency, and later that same day I received word, “President Clark just passed away.” His ministry closed the same day that mine began.
The mention of his name polishes the windows of my memory. I see clearly and feel deeply the memory of this great man. Now you must not assume that I suppose that I compare in stature with him. I am, with you, one of many who stood on his shoulders.
My close personal contacts with President Clark were very few. I heard him speak many times. I stood in awe of him.
I was in his office once and remember very clearly how he looked and what he said. I sat next to him at the dinner when he gave his address entitled “Reflective Speculation.” And there were other times. . . .
President Clark grew up as a farm boy in tiny Grantsville. At age eleven he could plow with a team of horses. If the weather was too cold for others to go, he would walk to the evening sacrament meeting alone.
In a large family he learned to work. He had a father and a mother of pioneer virtue and integrity. His father wrote in his journal, “I went down between the barley and wheat in the old ditch, and knelt down and prayed and dedicated the grain that we have sown and asked the blessings of the Lord upon it; this I do every year with everything that I plant.”
Another local boy, Heber J. Grant, knew him well. These two farm boys would meet again. With an elementary school education and at the urging of his father, President Clark moved to Salt Lake City to go to college. Dr. James E. Talmage was his mentor. When he went east to school, Dr. Talmage said, “He possessed the brightest mind ever to leave Utah.”
He married Luacine Savage. They became parents of three daughters and one son. From 1898 to 1903 he was teacher and administrator in Heber and in Cedar City.
Before leaving to study law, he called on President Joseph F. Smith. President Smith cautioned him about the field of law and set him apart on a mission to be an exemplary Latter-day Saint. . . .
In 1903 President Clark took his family to New York City to attend the Columbia University School of Law. In 1906 he graduated head of his class with an llb degree. Shortly after he was appointed as Department of State Assistant Solicitor, and he published his classic “Memorandum on the Right to Protect Citizens in Foreign Countries by Landing Forces.” (Does that not sound familiar today?)
While living in Washington, d.c., he was appointed as an assistant professor of law at George Washington University.
He opened law offices in Washington, d.c., in New York City, and in Salt Lake City, where he specialized in international and municipal law.
A staunch Republican, he became influential in both Utah and national politics.
They tried more than once to draft him to run for the United States Senate. There was also an effort made to draft him as a candidate for the presidency of the United States until he firmly refused.
During World War I President Clark served as a major on duty with the u.s. Attorney General’s office. He helped prepare the original Selective Service regulations. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal.
President Calvin Coolidge appointed him as Under Secretary of State in 1928. He then published his “Memorandum on the Monroe Doctrine.” Even his critics praised it as a “monument of erudition,” a “masterly treatise.” The title of your society’s semiannual publication is The Clark Memorandum.
In 1930 J. Reuben Clark was named as U.S. ambassador to Mexico. Two and a half years later he was called by letter as second counselor to President Heber J. Grant.
General conference had come and gone, and a vacancy in the First Presidency was not filled. A senior Apostle told me that two members of the Twelve waited upon President Grant and said, “We see you did not fill the vacancy in the Presidency.”
President Grant replied, “I know the man the Lord wants me to have, and he is not ready yet.” Pointing his cane at each of them, he said, “I know that feeling when it comes. I had it when I called you! And I had it when I called you!”
“When that cane pointed at me,” one of them told me, “I felt as if I had been electrocuted.”. . .
For those who would like to know more about President Clark, I share the following as told by Elder Glen L. Rudd:
While I was serving as counselor to Bishop Arthur Davis in the Fourth Ward [of Salt Lake City], he called me to say he had just received a phone call from President J. Reuben Clark, Jr. of the First Presidency. Bishop Davis wanted to know if I could come to his home immediately. When I got there he told me that President Clark had informed him that a sister with three little children had moved into our ward. President Clark had said to the bishop that this sister had just completed a great service for the Church and that we were obligated to help her. Because of certain circumstances, she had been evicted from her home and the family was in a seriously destitute condition. President Clark doubted that the family would have enough food even for supper that night, and definitely nothing to live on after that. President Clark asked the bishop to investigate her situation and do whatever he felt should be done. Then President Clark made a very profound comment to the bishop: “I would be glad to help her, but I do not have the authority to write a bishop’s order. I am only the First Counselor in the First Presidency, but you are a bishop and you have more authority to assist in the temporal affairs of a church member than I do.
Bishop Davis and I immediately went to the home of this sister and found her with a badly crippled leg and using crutches. She and her three little children were indeed in great need of food and other help. She was a good, faithful sister and it didn’t take us long to know that the welfare program could come to her rescue. Within the hour we were returned to her home with enough groceries to get the family through for a few days.
The next day we reported to President Clark that we had met with the sister and the welfare program, with the involvement of the Relief Society president, was assisting her with her needs.
The great lesson I learned in this experience was how President Clark viewed his limitations in these kinds of temporal matters and how he recognized the power and authority which only a bishop has. (Glen Rudd personal history)