Joseph Smith Valiantly Completed His Mission, Doing All That God Asked Him to Do
Doctrine and Covenants 135:6
6 Hyrum Smith was forty-four years old in February, 1844, and Joseph Smith was thirty-eight in December, 1843; and henceforward their names will be classed among the martyrs of religion; and the reader in every nation will be reminded that the Book of Mormon, and this book of Doctrine and Covenants of the church, cost the best blood of the nineteenth century to bring them forth for the salvation of a ruined world; and that if the fire can scathe a green tree for the glory of God, how easy it will burn up the dry trees to purify the vineyard of corruption. They lived for glory; they died for glory; and glory is their eternal reward. From age to age shall their names go down to posterity as gems for the sanctified.
Before Joseph Smith Sr. died, he gave the Prophet a blessing and told him:
“You shall even live to finish your work. . . . You shall live to lay out the plan of all the work which God has given you to do.”
(Quoted in “Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1845,” page 298, josephsmithpapers.org.)
