Description
Speaker: Glenn Rawson
Hi, this is Glenn Rawson. One of the most powerful ways to share history and heritage is by the telling of stories. We began sharing inspiring stories nearly 30 years ago. Each of those stories is true and was intended to inspire and strengthen faith. Over the years, those stories have reached millions around the world. This podcast is for you to listen, learn and enjoy.
First Story: The Lost Witness
Sometimes history is just not fair. What gets remembered is usually not the whole story as that story of Amma Saliman I told you last time. This story is another demonstration of not telling the whole story. I mentioned Doctrine and Covenants 28 at the top of the devotional. Here’s the second part of that story.
Hiram Page and his wife Catherine Whitmer were among the first members of the Church, being baptized on April 11, 1830. Hiram is most often remembered for the incident with a black stone and false revelations aplenty received therefrom.
It is because of Hiram Page that the Lord gave Doctrine and Covenants Section 28 which established a new way of governance in contemporary 19th century Christianity. Most Christian churches in America at that time were governed by conferences, ruled by a majority and anyone could participate. But no, that’s not how the Lord’s kingdom works.
Hence came the Lord’s declaration:
“No one shall be appointed to receive commandments and revelations in this church accepting my servant Joseph Smith Jun., for he receiveth them even as Moses.” (DC 28:2)
Hiram Page could hardly be blamed and certainly his intent was not malicious.
Once corrected, Hiram disposed of the stone and the revelations from Satan were supposedly burned. There’s some controversy about what happened to them but either way
Hiram got rid of it.
Subsequently, when Lucy Mack Smith took a group of Saints to Fairport Harbor and across the Lake to Kirtland, Ohio, Hiram and his wife, Catherine Whitmer went with them.
In 1832, Hiram followed the command of revelation and moved his family to Jackson County, Missouri. He settled on what became known as the Whitmer Settlement along with his in-laws.
Hiram was in Independence, Missouri when violence erupted there on October 31, 1833. He was seized and beaten by the mob so severely that he nearly died. It is said that they only ceased the assault when it became evident that Hiram would die before he would deny his faith.
He and his family were among the saints that fled across the Missouri River into Clay County and spent the winter of 1833-34 suffering in exile in the river bottoms. Hiram was among those first families to settle in Far West, Missouri.
But then and we’re now spring of 1838, when controversy erupted around his brother’s in-law John and David Whitmer, and they were excommunicated from the Church; the extended Whitmer family left the church with them, including Hiram and Catherine Whitmer Page.
Along with the rest of the Whitmer’s, Hiram remained in Missouri after the members of the Church were driven out by the extermination order.
Hiram Page bought a farm at Excelsior Springs, just 14 miles north of Richmond, Missouri.
In 1847, he became associated with William E. McClellin and his efforts to start a new Church. He wrote a letter to William McClellin in May 1847, Hiram made this telling statement:
“As to the Book of Mormon, it would be doing injustice to myself and to the work of God in the last days to say that I could know a thing to be true in 1830 and know the same thing to be false in 1847.”
Numerous witnesses attest that Hiram Page never denied his testimony of the Book of Mormon down to the end of his days.
On August 12, 1852 it is reported that Hiram Page was killed when a wagon on his farm overturned on him. He was buried nearby on the farm of his son, Philander Page, in Ray County, Missouri.
That farm would later be purchased by the Fulkerson family at the turn of the 20th Century. The Fulkerson family knew the name of the man who was buried in their property and they cared for the grave but knew little of the significance of the man buried there.
But for the rest of us, the grave of Hiram Page was lost to the rest of the world. Finally, in 2000, the connection was made and the grave of Hiram Page was found and appropriately marked at last. He was the last of the 11 Witnesses of the Book of Mormon to be found. The man was lost but not his testimony, not then, and not ever. He never denied his testimony. of the gold plates and of The Book of Mormon. That book is true!
Second Story:
This next story comes from the new book being produced by History of the Saints Joseph Smith – Prophet of the Living God.
It is one more of those powerful testimonies that cannot and must not be slighted. Parley P. Pratt tells the following story of events near Kirtland on the Isaac Morley farm. He said:
“About this time, May 1831, a young lady by the name of Chloe Smith, being a member of the church, was lying very low with a lingering fever with a family who occupied one of the houses on the farm of Isaac Morley in Kirtland. Many of the churches had visited and prayed with her but all to no effect. She seemed at the point of death but would not consent to have a physician. This greatly enraged her relatives who had cast her out because she belonged to the church and who together with many of the people of the neighborhood were greatly stirred up to anger saying, “These wicked deceivers will let her lie and die without a position because of their superstitions and if they do, we will prosecute them for so doing.”
Now, they were daily watching for Chloe’s last breath, with many threats. Under these circumstances, Parley said, President Smith and myself with several other elders called to see her. She was so low that no one had been allowed for some days previous to speak above a whisper and even the door of the log dwelling was muffled with cloth to prevent a noise. We kneeled down and prayed vocally all around, each in turn. After which, President Smith arose, went to the bedside, took her by the hand and said unto her with a loud voice:
“In the name of Jesus Christ, arise and walk.”
Parley said, “She immediately arose and was dressed by a woman in attendance. When she walked to a chair before the fire and was seated and joined in singing a hymn. The house was thronged with people. In a few moments the young lady arose and shook hands with each as they came in and from that moment, she was perfectly restored to health.”
The Prophet Joseph Smith, like his master, was a man of great power and I say it one more time. To a world that wants to ignore the witnesses, please don’t slight the word of witnesses. Those who were there and who knew Joseph, knew the power of the Lord Jesus Christ and his priesthood was with him.
You would do well, all of you, to pay attention to those who were there and not ignore their testimony.
I’m gonna save this next story for the next time because my wife asked me to share another one down here and I don’t want to go on too long. So there’s two more coming here in just a moment. Okay here it is.
Third Story: A Framework Knitter
I know how tenuous can be the foundations of critical decisions. Sometimes the most important life-changing and eternally significant decisions are made on the basis of little more than a feeling. I will be forever and ever grateful that the next two people I’m going to tell you about, made the decisions that they did. This story is titled ‘A Framework Knitter.’
John Rawson was born in 1824 in Swanwick, Derbyshire, England in the same house where his father and grandfather were born, lived, and died. Due to its humid wet climate, the area where he lived was famous for its textiles. Like his father before him, John was employed in the mills as a framework knitter.
The framework knitter was a machine invented in 1859 by William Lee in Nottingham. “It enabled workers to produce knitted goods around 100 times faster than a worker by hand. This was the first step in the mechanization of the textile industry and led to framework knitting playing a key role in the early days of the Industrial Revolution.”
Unfortunately, efficient though it was, being a framework knitter was dangerous, tedious, and depressing work. The museum of framework knitters in Nottingham has the following written description of the occupation.
“Life as a framework knitter was tough. The hours were long and working conditions cramped, uncomfortable and dangerous. The framework knitters had to pay to use their knitting frames, even if no work was available, and buy all of their own materials. The industry was controlled by Master Hosiers, who also owned the knitters’ houses. Low wages and high overheads meant the whole family would have to work, with children taking on tasks such as wool-winding, just to make ends meet. Poor health and malnutrition were rife.”
“…They are, many of them, unhealthy and dyspeptic; …from the long period of labor
endured in a close and confined atmosphere….I can tell a stockinger well by his
appearance; there is a paleness and certain degree of emaciation and thinness about
them.. hopeless poverty is producing fearful demoralization….”
A common insult in Victorian Britain was to call someone ‘as poor as a stockinger’ – by which means a framework knitter.”
My great-great-grandfather was a framework knitter.
The oppression of the common laborer in the textile industry was common to farm laborers, coal miners, and virtually every other occupation across Europe. The monarchical class society entrenched one’s place across the generations to never rise above the level of birth. Of course, there were exceptions, but with limited education and resources, those exceptions were not the norm. Hence, America was a godsend, a land of opportunity where they could “sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree and none shall make them afraid.” (See Micah 4:4)
Is it any wonder that so many left Ireland during the great potato famine of the 1840’s, or that so many left from across the British Isles to join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in America? The privations of the trail across the American plains, and they knew them well, were worth the pain and suffering for the privileges that lay beyond the ocean and the great trail across the American wilderness.
John and Sarah Rawson joined the Saints in 1851, and like so many others living in abject poverty, began saving to go to America. It was John’s heart’s desire. With help from the Church’s Perpetual Emigrating Fund, John and Sarah’s older children, managed to secure passage on board the Steamship Colorado. However, when the children went home to share with their father the exciting news of their imminent departure, they found John gravely ill. He died about a half hour after their arrival. With Sarah now a widow, with a brand-new baby and no means of support, it was quickly decided that Mother Sarah would take the youngest children and leave immediately for America.
Less than a month after burying her husband, Sarah took her four youngest children, one of them an infant, and sailed for America, leaving behind—everything and everyone she had ever known and loved.
She crossed the Plains to Salt Lake City by ox team and wagon and lived out her days just North of Salt Lake City in Plain City, Utah. She is buried about 15 minutes just North of where I’m sitting right now.
By all accounts, Sarah was not wealthy, but she was comfortable all her days and what she had was hers—she was free. Neither Sarah nor her children ever looked back. Today John and Sarah’s numerous posterity prosper and praise her name for making that journey. America and the great trail across the plains indeed represented a new life. Their membership, their decision to join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints represented eternal opportunities.
Last Story: St. Patrick
It’s St. Patrick’s day and well let’s just say there was a pretty earnest discussion about me wearing green as I came on camera this evening. And I insisted that I didn’t want to wear green and you’ll see why here in just a moment. I set up this next story with this.
To Annie and all of you who have ever wanted to make a difference in this world before you leave, haven’t you ever felt that way? Will anyone miss me when I’m gone because I did or did not do something significant? Have you ever felt I want to leave this world better than I found it?
Well, if those thoughts have ever been yours or still are, this story is for you. This is dedicated to any of you, especially missionaries who have ever loved another land and another people in the name and for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Patrick was born on the western coast of England to Roman parents converted to Christianity—though the depth of their conversion may not have been beyond social convenience. As a lad, Patrick knew not God, nor cared.
Then when he was 16 years-old Irish raiders came into his land and stole him away along “with many thousands of people.” He was sold to a chief named Miliucc who put him to work tending his flocks. Patrick was now in his own words a slave among a people “at the ends of the earth.”
The next six years were for Patrick an odyssey of misery. Alone among an alien people in a strange land forced to survive in the woods and on the mountains by his own devices, he turned not inward to bitterness and despair but outward to God in prayer. Patrick recorded,
“Every day I had to tend sheep, and many times a day I prayed—the love of God and His fear came to me more and more, and my faith was strengthened. And my spirit was moved so that in a single day I would say as many as a hundred prayers, and almost as many in the night, and this even when I was staying in the woods and on the mountains; and I used to get up for prayer before daylight, through snow, through frost, through rain, and I felt no harm, and there was no sloth in me—as I now see, because the spirit within me was then fervent.”
By the strength of his prayers and faith, Patrick was converted to a Christianity he scarcely understood. He had no Bible—no teacher. In time he was shown a vision of his escape.
“I heard a voice saying to me, ‘See, your ship is ready.’ And it was not near, but at a distance of perhaps two hundred miles, and I had never been there, nor did I know a living soul there.” Obediently, Patrick set out and by the grace of God was given passage on the ship.
In time and after many dangers he made it back to his homeland in England, and family, where they welcomed him and bade him that he “would go nowhere from them.”
Then one night, at home in England, Patrick experienced a vision. He saw a man bearing “countless letters. And he gave me one of them, and I read the opening words of the letter, which were, ‘The voice of the Irish’; and…at the same moment, Patrick said, I heard their voice… ‘We ask thee, boy, come and walk among us once more.’ And I was quite broken in heart, and could read no further, and so I woke up….
And another night…they called me most unmistakably with words which I heard but could not understand, except that at the end of the prayer He spoke thus: ‘He that has laid down His life for thee, it is He that speaketh in thee’; and so I awoke full of joy.”
Patrick awoke as a man reborn. From that day forward his soul was filled with a love and Godly longing for Ireland and its people. He would receive training, be ordained and eventually he would return to the land of his captivity – Ireland.
On the day he came ashore he was met by an angry pagan chief, intent on killing him, yet there was something in Patrick’s eye that won the man’s love. That night, warmed by the fire, Patrick awakened in Dichu, the fires of faith. The year was 432 c.e., and Dichu would be the first of thousands brought to Christianity by Patrick.
So much did Patrick love the people of Ireland and the land in the name of the Lord that he converted a nation to Christ, transforming a pagan society into a people who would one day carry Christianity across Britain and Europe and established centers of culture and learning as they went.
Patrick became the best of the Irish; more Irish than the Irish themselves. Once ashore, he never left. It is said that St. Patrick died on March 17, 461 . You know that day as St. Patrick’s day—a day that not only celebrates all that is Irish but also commemorates the humble service of a rustic unlearned Christian missionary who changed the world.
When I was a kid, all Saint Patrick’s day was an excuse to get bullied if I didn’t wear the right kind of green. Since those days, I have chosen not to wear green on St. Patrick’s day.
Call me a rebel. I prefer to remember this holiday not as one where I get pinched but as one where I get reminded of being good and doing good and the power of good to change the world.
Thank you for listening. Many of the stories you heard today have been published and are archived at glennrawsonstories.com. If you would like more information you can communicate with us there. We will be back again with another podcast next week.
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