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A Man of God
By Nephi Jensen

Just six days past his eightieth birthday, President Joseph F. Smith went on to the spirit world to engage in the great work of human redemption, a glorious vision of which was given him shortly before his death. His passing marked the end of the most unique career of our time.

It was a cold, cruel, hateful world upon which he first opened his eyes, at Far West, Missouri, November 13, 1838. There was poverty and privation in his home, and fiendish mobs howled on the outside. How different was the scene when he peacefully passed to rest, eighty years later! Then civil officials and men of all creeds stood with bowed heads and mellowed hearts beside his grave, while the bell in the Catholic cathedral tolled a solemn requiem.

No man of our day possessed in fuller measure the three cardinal characteristics of true greatness: genuine sincerity, unaffected humility, and deathless devotion to a great cause. In nothing was he ever half-hearted. He was totally void of pretense. He knew no policy except justice, mercy and right. In his every word and act, he put the cause for which he worked and sacrificed, for nearly three-quarters of a century, above every personal consideration.

Although a man of strong, stately body, active, virile brain, and great spirit, he humbly acknowledged his dependence upon God, with a grace as genuine and beautiful as that of a child. He walked all the long way through life in the dignity of benign meekness.

But his crowning virtue was a truly heroic heart that impelled him to dare all, risk all, and give all for eternal truth. From the time he went to Hawaii, on his first mission, at the tender age of fifteen, to October, 1918, when, with trembling frame, and heart aflame with strong convictions, he testified of the great things of God, there never was a time in his long, eventful life when he did not give the full strength of his big heart, and the vigor of his great mind, to the cause of human salvation.

He graduated from the only real University, the school of great service and varied experience. He was never spoiled by vain traditions, which are harder to unlearn than truth is to learn. His was a great, deep, virile, natural spirit, which was sent in eager quest of the biggest things of life, by a religion as true as truth. No glittering show of superficial scholasticism diverted his mind or heart from the one biggest thought of life, the salvation and glorification of human souls. Although he deeply appreciated the fine things of music, drama and art, he was yet wise enough to feel that no culture that the school master can give can take the place of the power and spirit in the word of God.

He was not a mere human machine that turned out one single mental product. His was an all-sided life. He exemplified most perfectly Carlyle's idea of greatness, that no man is supremely great unless he "can be all sorts of men."

In mind and heart he resembled very much Abraham Lincoln. Like the great Emancipator, there was in him an almost equal blending of rugged, practical sense, and the fine spiritual sensitiveness of the poet. Like Lincoln, too, he had that perfect sense of humor which recognizes that and that mirth is also "real," and a legitimate part of an "earnest" life. But his wit was chaste, and in his humor there was a blending of smile and tear.