William Knox

Salt Lake City

January 8, 1877

 

My Dear Brothers and Sisters and All My Kindred:

 

I received your letter.  I do feel sad to know I cannot describe my feelings.  My father’s family are wasting away.  The one-half of us are on the other side, where our father and mother and my God help us that remain to do that what we know to be right.  For we all have to give an account to that great Head of the Deeds done in the body according to the light that we had or might have had.  There is one cheering light.  A glorious fact that our Father who dwelleth in the Heavens is a Father who understands His own business and He has revealed glorious principles to this people.

 

In regard to the dead and those principles.  Take away the fear of both.  Our father and mother were good, as far as they knew.  If I can hold on to the end, I have obtained a promise that I, William Knox, will be a Joseph to the Knox family.  I have no fear about our father and mother for they will accept the gospel where they are.

 

All manner of sins shall be forgiven, but the sin against the Holy Ghost, that shall not be forgiven.  Neither is this world, nor in the world to come.  By these words spoken by our Lord, Jesus Christ, you can understand that there will be sins forgiven in the world to come.  I know that this kind of doctrine was not believed in when I left Hylton in 1849.  Nevertheless, it is true.  I don’t believe that any of my father’s family have sinned against the Holy Ghost.  The true meaning of the sin against the Holy Ghost is for a man to kill and shed innocent blood.  Then he becomes a son of perdition.  There is no forgiveness in this world nor in the world to come.

 

These thing that I am writing to you may seem a little strange to you.  Nevertheless, it is bible doctrine.  If you will read those places that I am about to direct your attention to: The first Epistle General of Peter, Chapter 3, Verses 18, 19, 20:  Here, Jesus Christ, (after he was crucified) went to the spirits in prison.  (Those were the people that would not believe what Noah preached to them).  Nevertheless, the flood came and they were drowned.  Their bodies were left to float about in the water, but their spirits were placed in prison, just the same as is done upon this earth.  (A criminal is put into prison for so long and then he is released again).

 

Read the fourth Chapter, the same Peter, Verses 5 and 6: “For, for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh but live according to God in the spirit.”  Ye, this is as plain as the Apostle Peter could tell it.  Noah was a preacher of righteousness.  He preached the gospel to the people, but they rejected it.  Hence, they were damned or condemned their spirits to prison and there they remain until Jesus went and opened the prison doors and gave them another chance.  Me thinks that they would accept.

 

Again, I will direct your attention to the first Corinthians, fifteenth Chapter, Verse 29: “Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if they rise not at all.  Why are they then baptized for the dead?”  After Jesus had returned from preaching to the spirits that he found had been in prison since the days of Noah, no doubt everyone of them believed.  But how could they be baptized for they had not their body?  For Jesus said, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.”  Ye, when Jesus tarried forty days with His disciples, he taught them what they should do and this baptism for the dead by proxy.  Paul said, “If there is no resurrection of the dead, why then are we baptized for the dead?”

 

I will give you another quotation.  Isaiah, Chapter 24, Verses 21, 22, 23: “And they shall be gathered together as prisoners are gathered in the pit and shall be shut up in the prison and after many days shall they be visited.”  You can read the whole chapter and that will tell you why those people had to go to prison.  You can meditate upon these things.

 

I will leave them with you my sister, Dorothy, next to me: my brother, Peter, that was before me.  My brother, Thomas, and my brother, John, and my sister,  Sarrah.  All gone.  My sister, Elizabeth.  Poor thing, suffering so.  My God, bless my sister, Elizabeth.  May they comforting influence cheer her and whatever is wrong may it speedily be put to right.  Likewise: you my Dear Sister, Eleanor.  I pray that you may soon become healthy and strong again.  I than you William Wilson.  God bless you for taking such care of my sister.

 

I am far, far away from my kindred, but it seems necessary that I was the one to represent my father’s family.  I have been true to my God, to my Heavenly Father thus far.  My desire is, come what may, to be the same in as few years.  We will know, as we are known, and why. I, your brother, Wm. Knox, took a different course from all my father’s family.

 

I sent to your daughter genealogical memoirs of family of Knox.  The Coat of Arms that belong to the Knox family.  I told her to let you see it.  I sent my brother, James Knox, the same. I begin to think that he never let you see it.  I have sent one to my sister, Elizabeth.  It takes a good deal of writing.  Perhaps then you think of the reason that the Desert News doesn’t come to you as I have for a long time been sending 14 weeklies amongst the Know family in both America and in England.  Besides this, I take the daily which cost me six dollars a year.  Besides others, I was beginning to get a little short, so I thought that I would take a little breathing spell.

 

To look at us in Utah from the outside appearance (no doubt it has a gloomy appearance and there are many that believe that we are doomed). But our cause is just and conquer we must and by the help of God will.  I have been in pretty close quarters before.  We pay no attention to their fifty-five millions.  God is for us, and He is more than this proud, American Nation.  This Nation is on it last leg and they are shaky.

 

My letter is hardly begun.  I find that I am where I must close.  My family are all well.  I would like Elizabeth could see this.

 

Love To All,

Wm Knox

 

P.S. I must close.  Remember me to Mr. Wilson. Mother. Let brother James see this letter.  Goodbye for now my dear brother, sisters and friends.  I hope that you will write to me soon.  I feel anxious to hear about you all.