The fulfillment of these words were wonderfully brought about recently through the discovery of Sidney Rigdon's son, John W., in New York. The son, most of his life, had been separated from the Church and all its interests. The proselyting of the elders in that city awakened in him a spirit of inquiry into the doctrines which his father had so ably expounded. The son became converted to the divinity of those doctrines and espoused the teachings of the Church.
On the other hand, the posterity of Frederick Williams became numerous and faithful. In view of such divine insight into the lives of men as well as into the course of events, who can doubt? Joseph Smith stood forth in prophetic majesty like Moses, Samuel, Isaiah, Peter, James, John, and others of old.
Returning to that important meeting in the Seventies' Hall, we find recorded in Elder Woodruff's journal the words of President Young. They are given by that faithful chronicler as follows: "I do not care who leads the Church as long as the Lord directs it. One thing I must know and that is what God says about it. I have the keys, and, therefore, the means of obtaining the mind of God upon this subject. I know there are those in our { 216} midst who will seek the lives of the Twelve as they did the lives of Joseph and Hyrum. We shall ordain others and give them the fulness of priesthood, so that if we are killed the priesthood shall remain. Joseph conferred upon our heads all the keys and powers belonging to the apostleship which he held before he was taken away. No man, no set of men, can get between Joseph and the Twelve in this world or in the world to come. How often Joseph has said to the Twelve: 'I have laid the foundation, and you must build thereon; for upon your shoulders the Kingdom rests.' The Twelve as a quorum will not be permitted to tarry here long, they will go abroad and bear off the Kingdom to the nations of the earth. They will baptize people faster than mobs can kill them. I would like it, were it my privilege, to take my valise and travel and preach until we had a people gathered who would be true. My private feelings would be to let the affairs of men and women alone, except to preach the gospel and to baptize people into the Kingdom of God. However, what duty places upon me I intend to fulfill."