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Vol. IV. April 1883. No. 7.

Jedediah M. Grant.

I.

THE lives of many of the prominent Elders of Israel are remarkable for their large experience and the maturity they attained in their youth. Joseph Smith, the Prophet of God, brought forth the fulness of the Gospel, organized the Church, revealed every principle essential to its perpetuation on earth and the salvation of the human family, preached the truth to thousands and prepared the way for it to reach all nations, administered the sacred ordinances of the house of the Lord, and entered into the practice of every principal he revealed, before he was thirty-nine years of age. He received his first vision when he was fourteen, and in less than twenty-five years after sealed the wonderful testimony of his brief life with the blood of a martyr. The hard struggle of his associates to establish the work of the Lord upon the earth was made before they, as a rule, had passed the meridian of life. Their active labors in the ministry, in receiving and spreading the principles of the Gospel to the people, caused them to grow rapidly in the knowledge of the truth and gave them wonderful life-lessons to develop the ability they were endowed with and cause them to become men of character, before they had hardly passed the portals of boyhood. Notably, in this respect, we remember the career of President George A. Smith, who was a preacher of the Gospel at seventeen and one of the Twelve Apostles at twenty-one.

Scarcely less remarkable is the rapid growth and development of President Jedediah M. Grant, the subject of this sketch. It is said of him, by those who remember him well and were most familiar with his life and ministry, that he ever impressed those who knew him with the maturity of his judgment, the thoroughness of his discipline, as related to his own culture and occupations, and the perfection he had reached in the application of the principles of eternal life. It is often said of him that he lived the Gospel so perfectly himself, and taught it so plainly to others, that it was impossible for him to remain longer in the flesh; that like certain holy men of old his great faith, the fruits of a Godly life, made it impossible to longer withhold his redemption. The progress he made in securing an education in the things of eternity-his life's greatest desire and aim-was very directly spoken of at his funeral in the remarks of President Brigham Young, who said: "Some people would have to live to be a hundred years of age to be as ripe in the things of God as was Brother Grant; as was the spirit which lately inhabited this deserted earthly tabernacle. There are but few that can ripen for the glory, the immortality that is prepared for the faithful; for receiving all that was purchased for them by the Son of God, but very few can receive what Brother Grant has received in his life time. He has been in the Church upwards of twenty-four years, and was a man that would live, comparatively speaking, a hundred years in that time. The storehouse that was prepared in him to receive the truth was capable of receiving as much in twenty-five years as most of men can in one hundred." His career, which it is the purpose of this sketch to portray, so far as the very meagre record of it has been made and is accessible to us, fully sustains the observations quoted, and reveals a sublime character, one of the noblest of the earth, engaged in the highest and worthiest labor that such can be called unto. But before passing on to the events of his life we would direct attention to his portrait, which has been obtained at great expense, and appears as the frontispiece to this number of the Magazine. It is engraved from a daguerreotype in possession of the family, and is said to be a great improvement upon the original. It exhibits Brother Grant in the full vigor and power of manhood. The face is one of great force and distinguished appearance. In this respect, however, those who knew him say no picture could do him justice. His figure was tall and graceful, and his address pleasant. He is said to have been always smiling when he was not angry; his anger, no man would care to meet.