The modern successor of LDS Church founder Joseph Smith joined millions of people Friday in celebrating the 200th anniversary of Smith's birth on Dec. 23, 1805. Satellite technology brought the commemoration to church members and others in 61 countries around the globe.
Speaking from Sharon, Vt., to thousands in the church's Conference Center in Salt Lake City and more thousands in countless sites beyond, President Gordon B. Hinckley recalled the legacy of the man "whose written testimony is repeated, it is echoed and re-echoed in scores of languages throughout the world."
President Hinckley's remarks were presented from a spot next to a life-size bronze statue of Smith on the grounds of the Sharon visitors complex. The center itself was decorated for Christmas, with artists' depictions of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. The current church leader's remarks closed the 90-minute program in Vermont, which occurred simultaneously and was interwoven with an observance in the Salt Lake LDS Conference Center, with a capacity 21,000-person crowd. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir provided musical numbers at the Salt Lake site.
President Hinckley said the sense of history at marking Smith's bicentennial "overwhelms me. I feel as if I am straddling the centuries," as he recounted Smith's accomplishments.
"This is a glorious and wonderful day. It is a day of remembrance, a day of great rejoicing, a day for gratitude and thanksgiving, a day in which we acknowledge the moving hand of God in bringing to pass his eternal purposes in behalf of his sons and daughters of all generations."
The firmness of Smith's convictions about the work he said God had given him to do — including translation of the Book of Mormon — stand solid two centuries after his birth, President Hinckley said. Some 130 million copies of the Book of Mormon have been printed in 77 languages, with 4 million additional copies printed each year.
"In an age of skepticism and doubt, his witness is unequivocal and certain" that God speaks to men from the heavens and restored the gospel of Jesus Christ and its priesthood to the Earth, President Hinckley said.
He and his counselors in the First Presidency, who presided in the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, lauded the sweep of the faith that now numbers 12 million members worldwide some 175 years after it was organized on April 6, 1830.
"Joseph was a simple farm boy," said President Hinckley. "His family had nothing, really. Palmyra (N.Y., where Smith said he saw God and Jesus Christ in vision at age 14) was a largely unknown rural village. But (an angel named) Moroni said to him . . . that his name should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds and tongues.
"How could Joseph, in his circumstances, have believed that such a thing should come to pass? And yet that is what has happened. Thousands all across the earth sing his praise and tribute," President Hinckley said.
"They read the Book of Mormon. They exercise the priesthood, they go on missions, they pay their tithes and offerings, all under a system of religion founded on divine revelation given to Joseph Smith, the prophet."
Recalling ceremonies in Vermont a century ago, which commemorated the 100th anniversary of Smith's birth, President Hinckley recounted how the 38-foot granite shaft that was dedicated to the memory of the founding prophet by then-President Joseph F. Smith was put into place (Please see accompanying story.)
President Hinckley, 95, had been expected to speak to church members live from Vermont, but he changed his plans at midday Friday and taped his remarks. The reason for the change was related to a winter storm, which brought snow to the site of the Smith monument where the broadcast was staged, said Bruce Olsen, church managing director of public affairs.
Speaking in the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, President Thomas S. Monson, first counselor in the First Presidency, said that "by any account, (Smith) was a remarkable individual" who never had a formal education beyond the middle grades and who was often "hounded like a fugitive" and was imprisoned on false charges.
Yet through him, "the gospel, which had been lost during centuries of apostasy, was restored, the priesthood and its keys were received, the doctrines of salvation were revealed, the gospel and temple ordinances, along with the sealing power, were returned, and in 1830, The Church of Jesus Christ was re-established on the earth."
Members of the church "do not worship the Prophet Joseph," President Monson said, yet he left a legacy "that enables some 12 million followers today on every continent to proclaim him as a prophet of God."
The biblical Joseph of Egypt prophesied of Smith, President Monson said, more than 2,300 years before the founder's birth, saying God told him "A choice seer will (God) raise up . . . (and) his name shall be called after me; and it shall be after the name of his father."
When Christ returns again to Earth at some future day "the Prophet Joseph will come forth with the righteous as a resurrected being and will continue to minister under the Savior's direction," President Monson said. "As our beloved hymn affirms, 'Millions shall know Brother Joseph again.' "
No one can understand the LDS Church and its mission "without knowing of its divine origin," said President James E. Faust, second counselor in the First Presidency. "Every person who claims membership in the church should have his own personal witness concerning the truthfulness of the remarkable story of Joseph Smith, of his beginnings, of his teachings, of his testimony and of his life."
Though Smith's teachings have, and will continue to be, discussed, debated and challenged, "no one can argue with the success of the work which he introduced. What makes this work really live is the individual testimony of the members of the church that Joseph Smith is the prophet of the Restoration."
Elder M. Russell Ballard, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve and a direct descendant of Smith's brother, Hyrum, who shared martyrdom with the founding president, also addressed the worldwide audience from Vermont, noting it was his great-grandfather who presided over dedication ceremonies there a century ago.
The Smith family was watched over by God down through the generations since the time of Adam, he said, and Smith's grandfather, a religious man named Asael, once said it had been "borne upon my soul that one of my descendants will promulgate a work to revolutionize the world of religious faith."
Smith's mother, Lucy Mack, was a descendant of John Lathrop, a religious reformer in England "who boldly taught that the gospel should be shared more freely with the common people and that they should be able to read the Bible for themselves," Elder Ballard said.
"How grateful we should be for the faith and believing blood that blended together in the Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith family."
President Boyd K. Packer, acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, opened the meeting with prayer, noting the celebration was being carried via satellite to 61 countries in 81 languages.
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Orchestra at Temple Square performed frequently throughout the service, with hymns particularly referencing Smith's life and mission, including: "We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet," "Joseph Smith's First Prayer," "The Seer, Joseph, the Seer," "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief," and "Praise to the Man."
Also speaking at the Vermont services was Armand Mauss, professor emeritus of sociology and religious studies at Washington State University and currently a visiting scholar in Claremont Graduate University in California. He said that both in numbers and influence, Mormonism today is "the most numerically important American religion." The growth of the church has changed common perceptions, he said, giving the church more legitimacy among the world religions but also building some negative feelings as the "political and economic influence of the church sometimes looms large." Mauss is a member of the church and former president of the Mormon History Association.
Contributing: Church News Editor Gerry Avant and the Associated Press
E-mail: carrie@desnews.com