About his vision of the three degrees of glory received at the Johnson home, Joseph Smith observed: "Nothing could be more pleasing to the Saints upon the order of the kingdom of the Lord, than the light which burst upon the world through the foregoing vision. . . . The sublimity of the ideas; the purity of the language; the scope for action; the continued duration for completion, in order that the heirs of salvation may confess the Lord and bow the knee; the rewards for faithfulness, and the punishments for sins, are so much beyond the narrow-mindedness of men, that every honest man is constrained to exclaim:
"It came from God."
History of the Church, 1:252–53.
Of the mob attack on the night of March 24, 1832, Joseph recounted: "I found myself going out of the door, in the hands of about a dozen men; some of whose hands were in my hair, and some had hold of my shirt, drawers and limbs. . . . They had concluded not to kill me, but to beat and scratch me well, tear off my shirt and drawers, and leave me naked. . . . They ran back and fetched the bucket of tar . . . and they tried to force the tar-paddle into my mouth. . . . All my clothes were torn off me except my shirt collar; and one man fell on me and scratched my body with his nails like a mad cat."
History of the Church, 1:261–63.
