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Show Page 90 stands as the clearest example of this practice. The Prophet requested of Heber Kimball that he give his wife to him, Joseph, in marriage, inasmuch as the Lord had commanded it. Kimball agonized but accepted the directive of the Prophet, who promptly declared that he had passed the ultimate test of loyalty and by the authority of the priesthood 26 sealed the couple in eternal marriage on the spot. Such requests may have been made of many others; at any rate, Bennett appears to have taken it upon himself to "represent" the Prophet in a few such proposals on his own initiative. Some forty years after the fact, Sarah Pratt recounted that Joseph Smith had come to her with such a proposal in the fall of 1840, while Orson was in Scotland. She wrote that Smith had come in Bennett's company at first; but then eventually the Prophet had come alone and told her that it was not at all "necessary" for her to be alone, that he would stay with her, and that there was no sin in it as long as she kept it to herself. In addition, she was given to understand by Bennett that Joseph had invented a revelation on polygamy to "shield" his general 27 attentions to numerous women around Nauvoo. This was apparently the story told by Sarah Pratt to her husband some time in the spring of 1842. She insisted that she had rejected any and all improper advances made to her by Joseph Smith during Orson's absence - this revelation must have profoundly bewildered Orson. He suddenly found himself outraged and at deep personal odds with the man he had revered almost as a god for twelve years. He apparently did not at that time confront the Prophet, but when Joseph Smith announced of a sudden that he was withdrawing fellowship from Bennett, Orson refused to sustain the action. He felt that Bennett was being ostracized, unjustly, in an attempt to cover up some of Joseph's own improprieties. From the |
