Signs and Wonders

Signs follow believers but seeking them is the mark of a wicked and adulterous generation. Mormon experienes and perspectives.
September 22, 1827		Heber C. Kimball
Signs in the heavens	¶	Sept. 22, 1827, while living in the town of Mendon, I having retired to bed, John P. Greene, a travelling reformed Methodist preacher, waked me up calling upon me to behold the scenery in the heavens.		¶ Heber C. Kimball (h1)
		I called my wife and sister Fanny Young (sister of Brigham Young) who was living with me; it was so clear that you could see to pick up a pin, we looked to the eastern horizon and beheld a white smoke arise towards the heavens, and as it ascended it formed itself into a belt and made a noise like the rustling of a mighty wind, and continued southwest, forming a regular bow dipping in the western horizon.
Army in the sky		After the bow had formed it began to widen out and grow clear and transparent of a bluish cast, it grew wide enough to contain twelve men abreast.
	¶	In this bow an army moved, commencing from the east and marching to the west. They moved in platoons, and walked so close, the rear ranks trod in the steps of their file leaders, until the whole bow was literally crowded with soldiers.
		We could see distinctly the muskets, bayonets, and knapsacks of the men, who wore caps and feathers like those used by the American soldiers in the last war with Britain; also their officers with their swords and equipage, and heard the clashing and jingling of their instruments of war and could discover the form and features of the men. The most profound order existed throughout the entire army, when the foremost man stepped, every man stepped at the same time: I could hear the step.
Battle		When the front rank reached the Western horizon a battle ensued, as we could distinctly hear the report of the arms and the rush.
	¶	No man could judge of my feelings when I beheld that army of men, as plainly as I ever saw armies of men in the flesh it seemed as though every hair of my head was alive. This scenery was gazed upon for hours, until it began to disappear.
Same night Joseph retrieves the plates		Subsequently I learned this took place the same evening that Joseph Smith received the records of the Book of Mormon from the Angel Moroni.
Kirtland Period		Joseph and A. S. Hayden
Early sign seekers		When the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was first founded, you could see persons rise up and ask, "What sign will you show us that we may be made to believe?"		George A. Smith, June 24, 1855, Salt Lake Tabernacle, JD 2:326. A[mos}. S. Hayden, authored Early History of the Disciples in the Western Reserve, (Cincinnati: Chase and Hall), 1876. d. September 1880.
Campbellite preacher A. S. Hayden		I recollect a Campbellite preacher who came to Joseph Smith, I think his name was Hayden. He came in and made himself known to Joseph, and said that he had come a considerable distance to be convinced of the truth.
Hayden wants proof		"Why," said he, "Mr. Smith, I want to know the truth, and when I am convinced, I will spend all my talents and time in defending and spreading the doctrines of your religion, and I will give you to understand that to convince me is equivalent to convincing all my society, amounting to several hundreds."
Wants miracle		Well, Joseph commenced laying before him the coming forth of the work, and the first principles of the Gospel, when Mr. Hayden exclaimed, "O this is not the evidence I want, the evidence that I wish to have is a notable miracle; I want to see some powerful manifestation of the power of God, I want to see a notable miracle performed; and if you perform such a one, then I will believe with all my heart and soul, and will exert all my power and all my extensive influence to convince others; and if you will not perform a miracle of this kind, then I am your worst and bitterest enemy."
Joseph offers to have him struck blind or paralyzed, etc.		"Well," said Joseph, "what will you have done? Will you be struck blind, or dumb? Will you be paralyzed, or will you have one hand withered? Take your choice, choose which you please, and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ it shall be done."
Hayden declines		"That is not the kind of miracle I want," said the preacher.
Joseph: Satan tempted Jesus to perform miracle		"Then, sir," replied Joseph, "I can perform none, I am not going to bring any trouble upon any body else, sir, to convince you. I will tell you what you make me think of—the very first person who asked a sign of the Savior, for it is written, in the New Testament, that Satan came to the Savior in the desert, when he was hungry with forty days' fasting, and said, "If you be the Son of God, command these stones to be made bread."
Wicked and adulterous generation that seeks signs		"And now," said Joseph, "the children of the devil and his servants have been asking for signs ever since; and when the people in that day continued asking him for signs to prove the truth of the Gospel which he preached, the Savior replied, "It is a wicked and an adulterous generation that seeketh a sign," &c.
October 1834		Joseph Smith Jr.
60-year-old recollection		… Although it is over sixty years since I heard [Joseph] utter those words, and I at that time was little over 13 years of age, the words are imprinted so strongly on my mind that they are as bright in my memory as they were at the very moment I heard them. These are the very words of the Prophet:		¶ Edward Stevenson Reminiscence (2)
Joseph promises speaking in tongues and signs		And as a servant of God I promise you, inasmuch as you will repent and be baptized for the remission of your sins, you shall receive the Holy Ghost, and speak with tongues, and the signs (of the Gospel) shall follow you, and by this you may test me as a Prophet sent of God.
Angel told Joseph	¶	Now, my young readers, who would dare to utter such words and great promises, and offer them as a test, unless he most assuredly knew what he was talking about? Well, he did know, for an angel from heaven had talked with him and given him promises which he neither doubted nor feared to declare.
		To be continued …
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