" And I see that in Thomas B. Marsh's words, where he says 'The Savior loved me, but he loved me enough to whoop me.' Basically, to put me in circumstances where I realized that I needed to come back and that I was missing something from my life."
Transcript
ASHLY
Casey, I am so excited to have you back on the podcast for round two. I know I've told you this like three times, but that Oliver Cowdery episode that we did before, it was life changing for me. I have listened to that episode more times on the podcast than I have any of our other episodes. What it taught me was that things that happened in church history in the early building up of the church are mirrors of things that happen today, and really understanding how they navigated these different things.
It's like a roadmap for how we can [00:02:00] handle hard situations and how we can do things. And it was like a light bulb moment for me. And it was just, it's funny because I work in a startup tech software company, and also I think this podcast could be considered a startup, if you will.
CASEY
Yeah.
ASHLY
And there's just so many things that I could relate with and lessons that I learned from that episode.
And so as we're studying D&C and Come Follow Me, and I've been watching these little Come Follow Me videos with my kids, and the one that I watched recently was about Thomas B. Marsh. And so I was like, “You know, I need to reach out to Casey and see if we can get him back on.” My husband had actually suggested that we do Thomas B. Marsh's story on the podcast.
You just so happened to be studying him at the time.
CASEY
Yeah, it was weird because I read a bunch of stuff about him in the morning, and then you called me about an hour later and I thought, oh, this is [00:03:00] serendipity that I'm reading about Thomas B. Marsh, and you called and asked about him.
Now we may have been connecting because, you know, section 31 of the Doctrine and Covenants is given to Thomas, and so that might have put him on our radar too, but he's a fascinating guy. He really is. And in a lot of ways, his story is sad. I do the same thing as you, Ashly, where, when I read these stories in church history, I sort of connect them to our time and realize that, times change, but people and their basic natures don't change.
It might help those who are discouraged about loved ones who've left, to know that there's always been this complexity of people coming and going from the church. There are sometimes increased periods of inactivity, but it’s a story as old as time, right? Where people discover the gospel and they fall in love with it, and then complexities come up in their life and they might depart from it, but hopefully they come back and even if they don't, we have an obligation to love and support them. Thomas Marsh really kind of [00:04:00]illustrates that too. He's a more challenging story than Oliver Cowdry. I'll give you that, but there might be more intrinsic lessons, wrapped up in his story too.
ASHLY
I'm so excited. I told my mom this morning that we were doing this, and she was like, “Oh my gosh. I was just learning about him,” and she was so excited too, so I'm sure, it can't just be us, that that's a small sample size here. So there's gotta be a lot of people that want to learn more about Thomas Marsh.
Ever since we did that Oliver Cowdry episode and since we've been studying the Doctrine and Covenants, it's made me realize people are just humans, and we deal with the same stuff back then that we do today. So I'm so excited to hear Thomas's story and what we can learn.
CASEY
Yeah, and that's the major thing to remember about history is that it becomes a lot more relatable when you realize these are people, and as you get to know them and you read their writings and study their lives, you know, they, they kind of [00:05:00] become more fully fleshed out characters to you and you can understand them a little bit better. And once you appreciate their humanity, you know, there's that whole phenomenon where when you're distant from someone, they seem larger than life. Like when I was a kid, I remember thinking the missionaries had it all figured out, you know? Mm-hmm. They know exactly what they're doing.
And then I became a missionary and realize . No, they don't. And then it's like your parents, where you think, oh, they always know what to do, and then you're like, no, they don't. When you become a parent.
ASHLY
Mmhmm.
CASEY
I think it goes all the way up to like president of the church where they seem so put together, but when you start to look at their lives, you realize, oh, their lives are messy too. You know, Russell M. Nelson was raised in a part member family, partially active, wasn't baptized until way after his eighth birthday. He threw his dad's liquor cabinet out and broke everything. Like, these are all relatable people, and [00:06:00] maybe we do them a bit of a disservice by placing them too high on a pedestal.
They're just like us.
ASHLY
Agree. I love that so much. Well, awesome. Let's jump into the story.
CASEY
Okay, well the first thing that I should point out is I am a BYU professor, but if everything had gone according to plan, I would not be a BYU. I would be at TMU, Thomas Marsh University, because Thomas Marsh was the original president of the Quorum of the 12 apostles in this dispensation.
And that means that if everything had proceeded the way it did, and he'd stayed in the church, he probably would've stepped in as Joseph Smith's successor in 1844. And by the way, Brigham Young was not even the second person in line. The next person in line was David Patton. So we could be at DPU right now.
David Patton was killed in Missouri around the time that Thomas Marsh left the church. So the third in line, Brigham Young stepped forward and becomes this amazing [00:07:00] leader. And that's where the school that I am at was named after. But that kind of shows how large Thomas B. Marsh looms in our memory, that he's a profound, amazing leader in the early church, but because he leaves, he sometimes has a lot of scorn heaped on him.
And I hate to say this too, but sometimes the reasons why he left are oversimplified as well, to where even almost 200 years later, we're not giving him the sort of charity that we sometimes do for other people. And by the way, he does come back. Yeah, he comes back 18 years after he leaves, but that's part of the story too. This deals with a person coming back, but also people having bitter feelings towards someone that they feel betrayed them.
Because it seems like Brigham Young and a lot of the other leaders of the church really struggled when Thomas B. Marsh came back after what he had done. And then reconciliation kind of at the end where they are able [00:08:00]to connect again as friends and Thomas B. Marsh dies in the church. So, do you want to just jump into it here?
ASHLY
Yep.
CASEY
Okay. Thomas B. Marsh is mentioned in a bunch of places in the Doctrine & Covenants, but the two sections that kind of connect the big parts of his life are section 31 of the Doctrine & Covenants and section 112 of the Doctrine & Covenants. Section 31 is received right when Thomas B. Marsh is investigating the church. And here's the story.
He lives in Massachusetts, but he gets a prompting one day that he's supposed to travel west. And as he is traveling west, he starts to head into Upstate New York again. This is around 1830 or so. He starts to hear these people talking about this new big thing, the gold Bible.
He wonders what that is and eventually gets pointed in the direction of Palmyra, which is right on the Erie Canal. It was a common path that people would take when they traveled west. And so he goes to Palmyra, and there is no Book of Mormon. It hasn't been published yet.
He's so anxious to know about it. He goes to the publisher, he [00:09:00] goes to Eeb Grandin's Bookstore, and somewhere along the way runs into Martin Harris, one of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon. And he is not able to take a copy of the Book of Mormon home with him, but they do give him a proof sheet. So when the Book of Mormon was printed, they originally had like 16 pages on a big sheet of paper.
And then 16 pages on another side, and then they would fold it up and cut it off and fold those together and make an entire book. Because they don't have the book, they hand him one of these proof sheets and he goes home with 16 pages of the Book of Mormon, and that is enough to convince him that something very special is happening here, and it’s so much so that he goes home and kind of tells his family, “Hey, I think I found something amazing. We're gonna move to Palmyra.” And so he moves, and joins up with the church around September, 1830. And that's when section 31 is received. So, section 31, the Lord commends him.
“Thomas, my son, blessed are you because of your faith in my work. [00:10:00]Behold, you've had many afflictions because of your family.” Now this is maybe foreshadowing, “Nevertheless, I will bless you and your family. Yeah, your little ones. And the day cometh that they will believe and know the truth and be one with you in my church.
Lift up your heart and rejoice, for the hour of your mission has come.” All these classic missionary phrases are delivered to him, and he joins the church gladly. His entire family joins. He becomes one of the more effective missionaries in the church during this time, and has a whole bunch of things happen to him.
Eventually, not only moves from New York, but moves to Kirtland, and is deeply involved in the church there, and in 1835, he is called as one of the original Quorum of the 12. Now this is where it gets a little complicated, because seniority in the 12 is a big deal. How long a person served. When Gordon B. Hinkley was asked once, “How do you become the prophet?” he said, “You get made a member of the Quorum of the 12 and then you outlive everybody else. That's his description of how it [00:11:00] works. So all these apostles are called simultaneously in February of 1835, and so seniority is gonna be a big deal, but how do you determine seniority if two apostles are called at the same time?
Well, it's still the rule that we follow in the church today, which is if two apostles are called at the same time, the older apostle is ordained first. So back in 2005, Dieter Uchtdorf and David Bednar were called. Elder Uchtdorf was older than Elder Bednar, so he's the senior apostle. He was ordained first, and that's the same rule they followed in 1835.
Now, weirdly enough, Thomas B. Marsh wasn't ordained first. They went out of order, but then when they had to determine seniority in the 12, they went by age and Thomas believed he was the oldest. That's another weird wrinkle to the story too, is he thought he was the oldest and he wasn't being dishonest, but he misremembered his birthday.
ASHLY
Oh, okay.
CASEY
I mean, birthdays weren't as big a thing back then. Thomas believed that he had [00:12:00] been born in 1799 when actually was born in 1800. And so when we went back and found the census records, we found out that David Patton was actually older than him and probably should have been the president of the Quorum of the 12.
But no deception here. Okay. Everybody's trying to be honest, we don't even know this until census records come out years later. And so he's made president of the Quorum of the 12 and he organizes the Quorum of the 12. The 12 go on missions at this time. The 12 were sort of, different than the way they function now where they're sort of the right hand people to the first presidency in 1835. The 12 were sort of like a traveling high council. So in places where there weren't stakes, the 12 were expected to go and organize things. And Thomas does this and he does a really, really good job. He's a really effective leader in the quorum.
It has some ups and downs under his leadership, but for the most part, he's pretty good at what he does. Now, when does he start to run into trouble? That's the other bookend. So in the Doctrine & Covenants, if you go to section 112, [00:13:00] that's the second section that's addressed to Thomas B. Marsh, and this is happening in the middle of the Kirtland apostasy.
And in Kirtland, there's the severe apostasy. They had a lot of people that didn't have a lot of resources moving into Kirtland, and they were trying to figure out a way to pay for them to have homes and farms. One idea that they floated was, let's launch our own bank. And to get everybody to invest in the bank, they go around and say, “Yes, put your money into this. It will help everybody and we'll all prosper together.” And unfortunately, through a combination of circumstances, the bank fails. Some of these things were way out of their control. There was a huge financial crisis that year and hundreds of banks failed throughout the United States.
Some of these things were in their control. There was some corruption in the bank. We can see from the bank records. Joseph Smith wasn't involved in anything untoward, but some of the clerks were. And the other thing was there was a concerted effort by people in other communities to make the bank fail.
So if you've ever seen It's a Wonderful Life, you know, the whole thing where [00:14:00] everybody pulls their money out of a bank and it fails—that happens to the Kirtland Bank, and that tests a lot of people. This is where several members of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles start to criticize Joseph Smith.
Some of them, like Luke and Lyman Johnson and William McClellan are excommunicated from the church. Thomas B. Marsh has a minor crisis of faith here. Not because of anything to do with the bank, because of something that has to do with kind of his personal pride, which is he saw himself as the head of the 12 apostles and then it was his job to direct them.
While all this stuff is happening in Kirtland, Joseph Smith approached Heber C. Kimball, who's one of the apostles, and tells him, “Heber, the Lord has whispered to me, ‘Let my servant Heber depart over the waters and teach the gospel to the people of the nation of Great Britain.’” So it's gonna be the first foreign mission in the church.
And Cy Kimball, is asked to go, and he takes Orson Hyde and a couple other people with him. Heber and Orson are both members of the Quorum of the 12. Now, [00:15:00] Thomas is really upset that Joseph Smith does this. He feels like the quorum is his job, that he's in charge of the quorum, and that if a mission call is issued, it's supposed to come from him and through him that he should have got the revelation.
So he approaches Joseph Smith and is sort of ticked off, feels like Joseph Smith has overstepped his boundaries. And so Joseph Smith receives a revelation on his behalf that sort of rebukes him. For instance, verse 15. And by the way, this revelation is to the entire 12, but parts of it are addressed specifically to Thomas.
Verse 15: “Exalt not yourselves. Rebel, not against my servant Joseph. For verily, I say unto you, I am with him. My hand shall be over him. And the keys, which I have given unto him and also unto you, word shall not be taken from him. Till I come, verily, I say unto you, my servant Thomas, thou aren't the man whom I've chosen to hold the keys to the kingdom as pertaining to the 12.”
So the Lord says, “Yes, you're right. You're in charge of the 12, but you're also supposed to serve under the direction of the first [00:16:00] presidency.” And then there's this really famous phrase that actually gets turned into a hymn in the church where the Lord tells him, “Be thou humble and the Lord thy God will lead thee.”
So Thomas is sort of rebuked and to his credit at this point in time, he repents, he reforms, he works to unite the quorum of the 12 and stays with Joseph when several members of his quorum depart because of the, complexities over the Kirtland bank. Several other members of the 12 come close to parting. Parley P. Pratt almost apostatizes during this time, but Thomas works to unite them and brings some of these people back into the church. And when it comes time to abandon Kirtland, 'cause they eventually have to, the crisis gets so bad that most of the faithful members of the church in Kirtland relocate to Missouri.
Thomas goes with them. And when he gets there, he becomes sort of a hardliner too. There was corruption happening in the church in Missouri, and they found out that some of the leaders of the church had been selling land to church members that inflated prices. [00:17:00] And Thomas is asked to intervene on that behalf.
So he takes part in several church councils where they have to excommunicate prominent members, people like W.W. Phelps, the guy who writes “The Spirit of God.” He eventually comes back. That's a great story. By the way. We ought to do another episode on him. Yeah. Thomas takes place in several of these excommunications.
He's there when Oliver Cowdery is excommunicated.
ASHLY
From the Oliver Cowdery episode? He was half, he was half ex-communicated. Half, yeah, half left. He was like, I'm not getting ex-communicated. I'm leaving.
CASEY
I believe it was a “You can't fire me, I quit” kind of situation,
ASHLY
Yes.
CASEY
where they excommunicate Oliver, but he's already sent a letter resigning his membership of the church. So whether or not he's excommunicated, you know, is tomato/tomahto. Yeah. But the guy on the other side of the table is Thomas Marsh.
He's sort of participating in these hearings that he feels are cleansing the church, but at the same time, there's trouble lingering. This is where it gets complicated, because there's one story that's [00:18:00] always told about Thomas B. Marsh, about the reason why he left.
And it's a true story and it is a factor in why he left, but it might be an oversimplification. So maybe you've heard of the cream stripping story.
ASHLY
Yes.
CASEY
Have you ever heard this before?
ASHLY
My mom just brought this up this morning when we were talking about this.
CASEY
Okay. So this did happen, and I'll recount the story, for our listeners, but apparently, Thomas's wife Elizabeth had an arrangement with a lady named Lucinda Harris, where they would basically take the milk and they would share the milk and the cream strippings, which was sort of like the best part of the milk that you could scoop off and use to make really good butter or cheese. Again, this is sort of foreign territory for us, right? But apparently, Elizabeth, Thomas's wife, was accused of stealing the cream strippings, taking more than she was supposed to. And it got to be so acrimonious that the leaders of the church became involved. Edward Partridge, who's the bishop of [00:19:00] the church, held a meeting and they ruled against Elizabeth.
Thomas was so incensed that he appealed to the first presidency. Like imagine going into the first presidency to say, “Hey, this lady's stealing my butter.” You know, that kinda stuff. They again rule against Elizabeth. They say, “Well, it seems like from every study that we've talked to and from all the information we have that she was guilty of stealing these cream strippings.
And Thomas gets really upset. And according to people that were there, he said, “I will sustain the character of my wife even if I have to go to hell for it.” That's the quote that always gets shared.
ASHLY
That is a devoted husband right there.
CASEY
Now, let me fill in the historical record a little bit here.
A guy named Henry Bigler attended the trial, and this is the way he described it. He said the bishop and others plead with Elizabeth to make things right, even offering to give her time to do so. But no, she [00:20:00] called on God and angels to witness her innocence. At this, she says, the prophet—this is Joseph Smith—jumped up and said, “Sister Marsh, you lie like the devil.”
And so Joseph Smith accuses her, and it's so emblematic of maybe those, those really small things that sometimes cause major rifts between people and
ASHLY
Mm-hmm.
CASEY
I remember, you know, in my own words, seeing big things blow up over what seems like not a huge deal. This is one of those cases where the seeds of his impost are kind of put down in this dispute, where if somebody had just apologized and said, “I'm sorry,” they could have moved on, but it just gets worse and worse.
ASHLY
And also I want to point out that they're building up the church. They're doing this good thing for the Lord, and they are not free of problems. Like petty problems and arguments and butting heads, and rifts coming between them. They're not free of that, even though they're trying to do something really good, [00:21:00] you know. These things come up because people are people, no matter where you go, inside the church, outside the church, no matter what good thing we're trying to do, it's like people are still people. And maybe Joseph could have maybe not said, “You lie like the devil,” that was a little harsh, you know? But people are people no matter what.
CASEY
Yeah. And I mean, it's funny because we usually tell this story to sort of make light, like, oh, they left over such a dumb thing. But I mean, from Thomas's perspective, I could see it a little bit, right? One time somebody mildly insulted my wife and I'm still a little salty towards that person.
Like, “Hey, who the heck do you think you are? This is my wife.” And I get that he's being honorable here. “This is what she says happened. I'm on her side, I'm her husband.” But that's not the only reason why he leaves. And maybe it's a huge [00:22:00] oversimplification of why he leaves too. It does seem like it happened; multiple people attest that it happens. George A. Smith, who's the church historian, tells this story at General Conference as he's compiling history of the church, but for some reason it's the only story that's been affixed to why Thomas B. Marsh left, and it's part of the story, and it's true, but it's not the only reason why he leaves.
In the same time, in Missouri, the cream strippings story happens, tensions between the church and the original settlers of the area start to increase. And there’s a back and forth. The original settlers are worried that so many church members are gathering that they're gonna get outvoted in every election.
Some members of the church are saying, “Hey, we've been pushed out of Jackson County and out of Kirtland. We're sick of this. If anybody messes with us again, we're gonna fight back.” And there's this war of words that eventually escalates into just outgrown violence in the fall of 1838. And so [00:23:00]Thomas is in the middle of this too.
The side of the story that doesn't always get told, that maybe justifies him a little bit more, not entirely, but a little bit more, is that he was uncomfortable with some of the rhetoric that was being thrown around. Like we talk at length about the extermination order issued against the church in Missouri, but the first person to use the word extermination was a church member.
It was Sidney Rigdon. Sidney Rigdon gives this big speech on the 4th of July, 1838, where he says, if they come against us, it will be a war of extermination. Now later on, that word is gonna be thrown back in our faces as violence does break out. But there's a gradual escalation and many members of the church felt like, “Hey, violence is justified if we're defending our homes.”
This is Book of Mormon territory. We're defending our homes and our families and our religion, so we are justified in fighting back. And Thomas did not feel okay about this. In fact, in October when the violence is starting to increase, and just to give you kind of a longitudinal perspective, the extermination order is [00:24:00] gonna be issued at the end of October.
Hans Mill happens at the end of October. Thomas B. Marsh counsels people saying, don't go forth boasting of your faith or of the judgments of the Lord. Go in the spirit of meekness and preach repentance unto the children of men. So he's trying to calm down the violence, but then the violence just continues to escalate until it seems like there are members of the church that are saying we are justified if we attack them because they've been attacking us. And there was a back and forth. The Missourians attacked a Latter-day Saint village named Dewitt. They forced everybody to leave. The Latter-day Saints appeal to the governor, a guy named Lilburn Boggs, who at the time says, I'm not gonna intervene.
You have to fight it out amongst yourself. So after that Latter-day Saint militia attack, a non Latter-day Saint town called Gallatin. And destroy several structures there. And Thomas is getting really uncomfortable with the rhetoric and the violence that he sees increasing. And it's in the middle of this that he leaves the church.
So, he basically takes his [00:25:00] family, takes his belongings, and he leaves Far West. And he's not the only one too. He goes with an apostle named Orson Hyde, so the president of the Quorum of the 12 and another member leave. And, they leave because they're worried about the violence that's occurring.
Now that's bad and a lot of people felt really, really betrayed by this. So a couple months later, Brigham Young excommunicates Thomas B. Marsh. And from this angle, you're saying, well, he didn't want there to be violence. A guy's worried about his family. That's justified. But he does do something here that really, really, really upsets, the leaders of the church, which is after he leaves, he not only leaves the church, but he goes to the authorities in Missouri and swears out an affidavit against Joseph Smith.
ASHLY
Oh boy.
CASEY
This is partially what Thomas v March writes. He writes, “The Mormons who refuse to take up arms were told they should be shot or put to death. I've heard the prophet say he would yet tread on his enemies and walk over their [00:26:00] dead bodies.”
And then he writes, “I left the Mormons and Joseph Smith for conscience's sake, and that alone, for I have come to the full conclusion that he's a very wicked man. Notwithstanding all my efforts to persuade myself to the contrary. I am well convinced that he will not escape the just judgments of an offended God.”
So he accuses the saints of fomenting the violence. When, almost 200 years later with perspective, we can see that there was tons of stuff happening on both sides. And the saints that are talking about violence, or for the most part, talking about defensive violence. Like when it finally does come to violence, Joseph Smith tries to negotiate a peaceful settlement. He tries to make sure that there is no violence, especially after Hans Mill happens. And most of the deaths in the Missouri War are at Hans Mill, where a Missouri militia unit just comes into the settlement and kills a bunch of people.
Now a lot of historians think that the governor of Missouri, Lilburn Boggs wouldn't have issued his extermination order if [00:27:00] Thomas Marsh hadn't said what he said. So Thomas Marsh makes this statement where he says, “Joseph Smith is out for violence,” even calls him a second Muhammad, and says, “He intends to cut a swath of blood all the way to the coast.” And that makes the Missourians, or at least gives them the justification to issue the extermination order, which reads in part, “The Mormons must be treated as enemies and exterminated or driven from the state. They’re outrageous or beyond all description.” So his words hurt the church big time.
And when the dust settles, Joseph Smith and several other prominent leaders of the church are imprisoned. They go to Liberty Jail. So if you've ever read the stories about Liberty Jail and how tough the conditions are there, Thomas B. Marsh is in no small measure responsible for them ending up in Liberty Jail. It's his statements that by and large put them there. It's rough.
Okay. David Patton, who replaced Thomas B. Marsh is killed [00:28:00] during the fighting that happens in Missouri, and that's when Brigham Young takes over as leader of the church.
So Joseph and Hyrum, and the entire first presidency, are in Liberty Jail. Brigham Young is the highest ranking leader of the church who's not in prison, and he has to organize an exodus. He has to get everybody out of Missouri under threat of an extermination order. Now it turns out Brigham Young is really good at Exodus Inc., so it works out. This is sort of like his test drive for eight years later when he has to lead the saints across the plain. But there is this lingering anger in Brigham Young that Thomas B. Marsh betrayed them and they got into trouble because he not only left the church, he betrayed the leaders of the church.
In fact, Joseph Smith is angry in Liberty Jail. He writes a letter where he talks about Thomas Marsh and Orson Hyde, and writes Marsh and Hyde, whose hearts are full of corruption, whose cloak of hypocrisy was not sufficient to shield them or hold them up in their hour of trouble, who after having escaped the [00:29:00]pollutions of the world through the knowledge of God and became entangled and overcome, the latter end is worse than the first.
So Joseph Smith is saying, “These guys betrayed us, and they're gonna have to pay a price for what they did.” Now the full story is that Orson Hyde, after a couple months, comes back to the church, and Joseph Smith forgives him, and he comes into the church. If you’ve heard the name Orson Hyde, it’s probably because Joseph Smith assigns Orson Hyde to travel all the way to the Holy Land and dedicate Jerusalem, which he does. Then he comes back and Germany publishes one of the earliest accounts of the first vision, and stays a faithful apostle until the end of his days. Thomas does not come back during this time. And Joseph Smith and the Saints regroup and regathered in Nauvoo, everything that happens there happens including the introduction of temple ordinances, plural marriage.
Joseph and Hyrum are killed, and Brigham Young takes over and leads them across the plains. Now, while all this is happening, Thomas B. Marsh stayed in Missouri and he's living in Howard County, which is about a hundred miles away from Jackson County [00:30:00] where the Saints originally tried to sell, and we just don't know very much about his life during this time.
But we know that a couple things happened. At some point in the 1850s, Elizabeth leaves him. And apparently there was such a severe break in their marriage that a lot of people, when Thomas came back to the church, believed that Elizabeth had died. We looked up census records and we found out that Elizabeth didn't die, that they separated.
We don't even know if they got a divorce, to be honest with you, because we only have census records on her. The other thing that happens is that Thomas has a stroke. He's left partially paralyzed, and he's in pretty tough physical shape. And with Elizabeth gone, and a lot of people tie this back to the cream strippings too, like saying, “Well, once his wife was gone, he came back into the church.” He writes a letter to Salt Lake, to Heber C. Kimball, one of his old fellow apostles. And he writes and says this:
“I cannot live so long without a reconciliation with the 12 and the church whom I have injured. Oh, brethren, once brethren, [00:31:00] how can I leave this world without your forgiveness? Can I have it? Can I have it? Something seems to say within, yes. I know what I have done. A mission was laid upon me and I never filled it. And now I fear it's too late, but it is filled by another. I see the Lord could get along very well without me.”
So he's talking about a Doctrine & Covenants 118 where the 12 were called to go on a mission to England. Because Thomas left the church, Brigham Young leads that mission and it's a total game changer. They convert thousands of British people, and move them to America. And by the time he's writing this, Brigham Young is firmly established as the leader of the church. So Thomas is sort of writing back and saying, “I know that I left right when we'd been called on a mission and I didn't fill it, but I want your forgiveness. I want to come back.”
And he starts to make his way back. But again, his stroke has left him partially paralyzed. He stays at Council Bluffs, which is kind of the place where they're organizing people to travel across the plains. A guy named Wanda Mace, he stays with [00:32:00] and he describes him. He says he was completely paralyzed.
They had to move him in a sheet. While in this condition, he made a determination that if the Lord spared his life and he received sufficiently to help himself, he would return to the church. And as soon as he was able to travel, he left his home in Missouri. So he does eventually cross the plains, and he comes to Salt Lake and sort of offers himself to the church, and they accept him back now.
This is where the story gets a little complicated too. He gets up to speak in General Conference, and there is still like real bitterness on the part of Brigham Young. And several other leaders of the church kind of make comments like, you know, “Can you believe this guy?” But Thomas gets up and speaks in General Conference, and he sort of shares this story, and it's incredibly moving for everybody. This is what he says, in part. He said, “God loved me too much to let me go without whipping me. I've seen the hand of the Lord in the chastisements, which I have received. I have seen and know [00:33:00] that it has proved He loved me. For if He had not cared anything about me, He would not have taken me by the arm and given me such a shaking. Many have said to me, how is it that a man like you who understood so much of the revelations of God as recorded in the book of Doctrine & Covenants should fall away? And I told them not to feel too secure, but to take heed lest they should also fall. You will not then think nor feel for a moment as you did before. You lost the Spirit of Christ. For when men apostatized, they're left a gravel in the dark.
And I frequently wanted to know how my apostasy began, and I've come to the conclusion that I must have lost the Spirit of the Lord out of my heart.”
ASHLY
Wow.
CASEY
And so he gives this huge speech where he says, “You know what? I've metaphorically just been whipped over the last 18 years, and I don't want anybody to be too confident in their testimony. This guy was president of the Quorum of the 12, you know, one of the highest ranking church officers to ever be excommunicated, [00:34:00] comes back and says, “I just wanna rejoin the church.” And so there, right in the middle of the conference, there's a vote and they vote to receive him back into the church. He gets a physical sign from the members of the congregation that they forgive him and they want him to come back. It must have been a huge moment for him. And it sounds like
ASHLY
And it sounds like things were a little different back then, that they would have somebody that was an excommunicated member of the church speaking in General Conference.
CASEY
It was the Wild West, right? Like the guy shows up. Take him up on the stand, let him talk. Right. And he's speaking instantaneously now. Now, I wish I could say that was the end of the story too, but, part of why this story is illustrative is it shows a person leaving the church and then having the humility to come back.
But oftentimes, there is bitterness on the part of people who stayed in the church, right? Mm-hmm. And there's sometimes resentment like, “Hey, you should have stayed faithful.” And in this case, Brigham Young gets up next to speak and he says some harsh things, to Thomas B. Marsh.
Now, to put Brigham in context here, he's the one that had to sort of rescue the church in Missouri and lead them across the [00:35:00] plains. And there's, I think, still this lingering feeling of “You betrayed us. You were my leader and you left.” So Brigham Young gets up and says this, and please don't judge him too harshly, but he says, “Brother Thomas considers himself very aged and infirm. And can you see, brothers and sisters, what is the cause of it? He left the gospel of salvation. Oh, how, what do you think is the difference between his age and mind? He said, and then he goes, “One year and seven months to a day. Look at this guy, and look at the condition he's in, and then look at me. We're a year apart in age.” And then he makes the statement, he says, “Mormonism keeps men and women young and handsome, and when they're full of the Spirit of God, there are none of them but what will have a glow upon their countenances. And this is what makes me young, for the Spirit of God, is with us and within us.”
Ouch. that hurts. Right? And you can see in Brigham Young, some of this kind of lingering resentment where he feels like, “You betrayed us,” and he feels like he has to make a public [00:36:00] spectacle. And this is maybe Brigham Young at his ugliest, but it's understandable, right? I confess to having feelings like this sometimes too, where I'm like, “You know what? You knew so much and you understood that it was true, but you betrayed it. How could you?” But that's not the end of the story either. So after this happens Thomas does still join the church. He doesn't stand up. He doesn't dispute Brigham Young. He humbly takes his last whipping.
ASHLY
That's honestly so incredible. Clearly that is evidence of a testimony right there.
CASEY
Yeah. And it also shows his growth, right?
ASHLY
Mm-hmm.
CASEY
Like this is the “I will sustain my wife if it means I have to go to hell” guy. And 18 years later, he comes back and receives a stern rebuke in a public setting, but he takes it.
He says, oh, I understand. He commits himself to the church. He dedicates himself. In fact, he signs a document September 7th, 1857, where he says, “I consecrate and dedicate myself, soul, body, and spirit [00:37:00] with all I possess on the earth to the Lord,” and commits to the gospel again. The next month he gets remarried.
He marries a woman named Hannah Adams and is ordained an elder on March 11th, 1859. So it does take a couple years and later becomes a high priest. He moves to Spanish Fork and becomes a school teacher there. So he never becomes a member of the quorum of the 12 Again, never holds any high position within the church, just serves within the church and he stays there for about 10 years.
Now, again, you might think, well, maybe Brigham Young was justified. Thomas B. Marsh took it. We did find a note, and this is what I was reading when you called me, and brought up talking about Thomas B. Marsh, 'cause I had just listened to the Brigham Young sermon.
I was like, oh man, this is tough. Like, I love Brigham Young, but sometimes he's a lot. Right. There's a little note in Brigham Young's office Journal from three years later. [00:38:00] It says, “Thomas B. Marsh called upon me, and he and I—“ this is what it notes in his journal—“and he and I talked about old times with him and sung a hymn that we had sung together in old times.”
Marsh commented that Young's display of kindness made him feel good. And after becoming thoroughly submissive, Young showed charity and mercy. Brigham helps him get on his feet, helps him get back into the church, helps him get reordained to the priesthood and helps him get set up.
—
So it didn't happen publicly, but there's this little note that's kind of semi lost to history. The first history I read at Thomas B. Marsh doesn't mention this meeting. Another historian named John Turner founded it and put it in his book on Brigham Young, where privately they meet together and these two old colleagues sing a hymn and talk about old times and ultimately reconcile. And that to me is the gospel, right?
ASHLY
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
CASEY
That all these complicated feelings, [00:39:00] you know, “You betrayed us.” “Well, I was just sticking up for my wife.” “Well, you got us into trouble. You got Joseph thrown in prison. There was an extermination order living against us.” “Yeah, I was wrong. I messed up. The Lord had to chastise me to get me to come back.” “Well, I'm still angry.” And then when they finally get the chance to meet privately, it all kind of melts away, right? And they realize that the thing that matters is that they're here together, and they end up together.
Thomas lives for a couple more years. He does have some major challenges, with mental illness and it's probably linked to his stroke, but he dies faithful in the church. In 1866, his obituary is noted. For a long time there was only a wooden marker in the Ogden City cemetery that just noted Thomas B. Marsh, just the initials TBM. But in 1893, David Stewart, who was the president of the bench district in the Weber stake gathered everybody together and put in a proper granite marker. And if you go and [00:40:00] visit Thomas Marsh today, it reads as follows: It says, “Thomas B. Marsh, the first president of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Born in Act in Massachusetts, November 1st, 1799, died January, 1866, erected by his friends, July 17th, 1893.” So, that stands, and then in 1920 they put in another marker to commemorate him.
ASHLY
The thing that I love about this story is that I think sometimes in our lives today, when things like happen in the church, there's disagreements, or there's arguments or, you know, with people in our ward or whatever, it's like, “Why is this happening when we're trying to do what's right here? We’re trying to follow …” You know? Or, why would this person that's a believing active member of the church treat me this way?
CASEY
Mm-hmm.
ASHLY
This is such a beautiful story of forgiveness and humility. I love how Thomas B. Marsh humbles himself. My husband and I are [00:41:00] missionaries in the 12-step program, the Addiction Recovery Program, and that is a key theme, is humility, is admitting when you are wrong. Being humble without being compelled to be humble. And in this case, he was definitely compelled to be humble, but we talk about that humility so much and I hear that so plain as day in his story. Like for him to go in front of all of his fellows and admit his wrongs. And clearly if he's coming back to the church, he's gotta feel pretty bad about what he did. And then you also have Brigham who's practicing forgiveness. Imagine having to forgive somebody that caused so much heartache and so much problems and having to forgive them for that, I imagine would be hard, but then you see 'em singing together and they're friends again and it's, man, I love that.
CASEY
And again, I mean, it kind of runs the whole gamut of the human experience, right? Where on the one hand, you know, he wasn't as unjustified as we sometimes make him [00:42:00] sound. We tell the cream stripping story, and when you read the entire thing in context, he was probably a little justified. He was genuinely worried about violence. And there was violence carried out by church members in Missouri. That's where the Dannites come into the story.
Right. At the same time too, just like you, Ashley, when I served on a stake high council, I was present at some of those meetings where people come back into the church. And I used to think that a church membership council would not be spiritual. It would just always be tough because we're sometimes removing people from the church, taking away their membership.
Most of the ones I went to, in fact, the vast majority in my stake, were people coming back into the church. And if there was one common characteristic, it was just kind of this deep humility, like, “Hey, I know that I was wrong, I just wanna make it right.” A common question that got asked in those meetings was, “How do you feel about the Savior?” and a common thing was, “The Savior loved me.” And I see that in Thomas B. Marsh's words, where he says “The Savior loved me, but He loved me enough [00:43:00]to whoop me.” Basically, to put me in circumstances where I realized that I needed to come back and that I was missing something from my life.
ASHLY
Mm-hmm.
CASEY
Again, it's remarkable to see the change. And Orson Hyde who left the church the same time as him comes back in and leads a remarkable life of service. If Thomas had come back sooner, that's possible too. But that's all sort of after-the-fact speculation on our part.
The point is that he ended up in the right place and he did the right thing, and under some really adverse circumstances, he showed remarkable humility. And I think that that humility eventually softened Brigham Young's heart, to the point where Brother Brigham could forgive him too for all the trials that they went through because of him.
So it's a nice story of reconciliation and these two people that had served closely coming to realize that, hey, it doesn't matter where you've been, what matters is where you're at right [00:44:00] now and where your heart is and what your relationship with the Savior is at this moment. Nothing else matters.
ASHLY
That is so good. And also, people can change. People can and do change. And when you were talking about the disciplinary council, in the church, I have interviewed so many people on the podcast that have gone through that disciplinary council. And it is a spiritual experience. And it is a positive experience. It's not this negative, awful thing. It's just like Thomas said, you know, the Lord loved him enough to chastise him and whoop him.
CASEY
Yeah.
ASHLY
Yes. And whoop him. And I've experienced that in my own life. I've experienced times where I felt like I made a wrong decision and I've felt rebuked because of it. It’s like the pride cycle. There was an article in the Liahona a couple months [00:45:00] ago, and it talked about the pride cycle and how, we get to the top of the pride cycle and then something happens and we're humbled. That humbling experience, it’s refining, and it brings you to your knees. It's just really cool to see how Thomas made his way through the pride cycle, and then he was so humble. And anyway, what a beautiful story.
CASEY
Yeah. And his humility was really enduring, right? He gives up everything that he has and starts his life over, and I think ends in a good place.
You know, it's hard to say because, after that meeting with Brigham Young, the sources become a little disparate on Thomas B. Marsh, but I'd like to think he ended in a good place. And I was genuinely touched that in the 19th century, when we pointed to guys like Thomas B. Marshes, don't do this.
You know, this is an apostate, that a stake president saw his grave and said, “You know what? He may have left the church for a [00:46:00] spell, but he deserves a better grave marker than a wood plank. Let's raise some funds and let's mark the grave of a president of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles. A great man who made a couple mistakes, but ultimately ended exactly where he was supposed to.”
To have a deep love for everybody involved in here, and I've been on both sides, right? I've felt rebuked by the Lord because I messed up. And there's been times what I've looked at, someone who's messed up and felt genuine resentment. Like, how could you? And realize that, hey, what Satan wants is for us to not forgive. And even if you feel like it's righteous indignation and anger, it ultimately can become poisonous to your soul. It's why I'm so glad to find that little note that he and Brigham reconciled in his office, and ended in a good place too, because I don't want to think that Brigham Young was bitter
ASHLY
Yeah.
CASEY
the rest of his life too, even though he had pretty good reason to be angry. But it seems like he forgave Thomas as well and they ended his friends.
ASHLY
Yeah. [00:47:00] I love it. Well, Casey, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's so fun to have you back on, and these episodes are so impactful for me.
I've never enjoyed historic stories like I do when you're talking to me about these early members of the church. I love 'em.
CASEY
Well, and keep in mind, Ashly, that you are an important historian too. You're just documenting modern stories. I mean, 200 years from now, people are gonna be talking about your podcast and the story of how this person came back. So we're all historians here, right?
ASHLY
We're just creating it today?
CASEY
Yes. You are creating the history and I'm going back and digging it up and I love it, I've had the chance to listen to a few episodes and I really enjoy what you're doing as well.
So I hope you'll keep at it too.
ASHLY
Thank you. Thank you so much. Definitely gonna keep at it.
CASEY
Okay.
ASHLY
Okay. Thanks Casey.
CASEY
Alright, thanks Ashly.
[00:48:00]
