Description
Five Secret Questions
It was the late summer of 1831 when two missionaries were traveling through Illinois and stopped in the small town of Paris to preach. One of those missionaries was particularly interesting as he testified of witnessing an angel and of actually seeing the plates of the Book of Mormon. A young schoolteacher named William heard what they had to say and was convinced that it was true. As the missionaries moved on, William closed down his school and went after them. Along the way, he devoured the Book of Mormon and even interviewed the Book’s witnesses. Finally William declared, “I was bound as an honest man to acknowledge the truth and validity of the Book of Mormon, and that I had found the people of the Lord.” He was baptized.
It was October 25, 1831, when William first met Joseph Smith, and as so many others had done before him, he asked Joseph for a revelation on his behalf. Joseph inquired of the Lord for William and a revelation did come. William wrote it down as Joseph dictated it.
“This revelation brought great comfort to my heart, he said, “because it answered many questions which had been on my mind with uncertainty and anxiety.”
It was only later that we learn the miraculous significance of that revelation. William told of putting five questions to the Lord in secret. If Joseph addressed those questions it would be a sign to William that Joseph was indeed a prophet. The result…William said:
“I now testify in the fear of God, that every question which I had thus lodged in the ears of the Lord of Sabbath were answered to my full and entire satisfaction, I desire it for a testimony of Joseph’s inspiration. And I to this day consider it to me an evidence which I cannot refute.”
That revelation answering the five secret questions is known today as Doctrine and Covenants 66, and that young schoolteacher was William E. McLellin.
Perhaps what is most compelling about this story is what comes after. By 1838, William E. McLellin was an embittered enemy of Joseph Smith and the Mormons. It was he who asked permission to flog the Prophet when he was a prisoner in Liberty Jail. It was he who, along with others, ransacked the home of Emma Smith stealing such valuables as a horse and saddle.
McLellin left the Church never to return. And yet to his dying day McLellin would affirm the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and the validity of that revelation dictated by Joseph Smith considering it, he said, as “evidence” of Joseph’s prophetic calling “which I cannot refute.”
And still, William would die an enemy to the faith and to Joseph.
Sources:
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2020/01/knowing-is-nice-but-not-enough?lang=eng
https://rsc.byu.edu/coming-forth-book-mormon/eleven-witnesses
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_E._McLellin
https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/memories/KWJR-T82
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