Epilogue “The Shaking between the Field and the Barn”: The Clayton Allegory

An interesting perspective on the nature of discipleship was suggested toward the end of the nineteenth century by Josiah Royce, in his thoughtful introduction to John Fiske’s Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy.¹ Royce was commenting on intellectual movements rather than organized religious bodies such as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but some of his insights apply. He characterized two “sorts” of discipleship. One consisted of “the disciples pure and simple,” those who fall under the spell of a leader or doctrine and spend their whole lives expounding, defending, and warding off foes. Such disciples might be indispensable to the founding of a movement, but in the long run, Royce argued, they will hinder its growth. The second sort consists of those who take new concepts and give them expression in some novel way. They act, more or less independently, to build upon the doctrines of the founder, and they try to lead the thought they have accepted “to a truer expression. They force it beyond its earlier and cruder stages of development.”

Under this criteria, William Clayton came closest to being a disciple of the first sort—the disciple “pure and simple.” He was no innovator or formulator of new ideas, though he often came up with colorful and unique language with which to express traditional Latter-day Saint concepts. He saw himself as fearlessly building and faithfully defending the Kingdom, but certainly not taking its doctrines to any further stage of development or even suggesting new ideas. To him, the doctrines were developed as far as they needed to be—anything not already revealed was simply not necessary for salvation and therefore was hardly worth speculating on. Even though the profound thought and speculative sermons of Orson Pratt (a disciple of the “second sort”) in 1852 were interesting to Clayton, he was just as happy when they stopped, for such musings seemed of little value to the Kingdom.

William’s brand of discipleship, however, was essential to the strength of early Mormonism. The Church, after all, was more than the kind of intellectual movement Royce was concerned with, and it took more than unique ideas on the part of its disciples to make it survive. Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Orson and Parley Pratt, and others provided the intellectual and spiritual leadership, but the Kingdom also needed soldiers who found pleasure in following the prophet with unquestioned loyalty, who were more concerned with spreading the doctrines they were taught than with casting them in new formulas, and who were so fiercely proud of their partisanship that they would stand anywhere to defend it. A revelation to Joseph Smith told the Saints to take upon themselves the “whole armor” of God—including the “breastplate of righteousness,” the “shield of faith wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked,” the “helmet of Salvation,” and the “sword of my Spirit.”² Disciples of Clayton’s sort loved such imagery and happily saw themselves as building the fortifications, not planning them, and as following orders, not giving them.

B. H. Roberts, prominent intellectual, historian, and Church leader early in the twentieth century, was deeply concerned that Mormonism should encourage more disciples of the “second sort.”³ They, after all, are the men of ideas and vision and are vital to the intellectual as well as the spiritual life of the Church. He recognized that presenting new ideas and even recasting old ones carried potential for stress and strain, though he also spoke feelingly of the need to define the “essentials” of the faith narrowly, leaving room for wide-ranging opinion and discussion on the “nonessentials.”⁴ But Roberts lived in a different world than Clayton—a new age in which the challenge was no longer one of fighting the visible enemy but rather the more subtle one of dealing with new scientific and social thought, new methods of scriptural criticism, and new political alignments for the Church. One wonders if a disciple like Clayton could be comfortable at all in the new age or would even have thought of Roberts’s “essential” versus “nonessential” dichotomy. For Clayton, whatever the prophet taught was essential. It was the disciple’s role to accept and teach it, and Clayton’s brand of nineteenth-century discipleship helped make Mormonism a force to be reckoned with.

The story of William Clayton was, in many respects, the story of the Mormon community. He saw himself as first and foremost a disciple of Christ, but this meant that he also owed his devotion to those prophets chosen to head Christ’s earthly Kingdom. As a loyal follower of both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, therefore, Clayton’s life was wrapped up in building the Kingdom. This helps explain why thinking and talking about the gospel was as routine to him as keeping accounts or recording marks and brands. His last words before he died were of the history of the Church. As his son later reported, “five minutes previous to his death, he was conversing with Dr. Bernhisel about the old days of Nauvoo, hence the uppermost thing in his mind was his religion.”⁵

Something William Clayton wrote early in his career may not have been a literary masterpiece, but as an allegorical expression of religious faith it was eloquent:

I have often found that in the greatest seasons of suffering we have the greatest cause of rejoicing and so it has been with us for when we have thought impossible even then was our happiest moments. After all this I am aware that all we have suffered is scarce a beginning to our share of the tribulations of these last days. At the time of harvest men are sent to cut down the corn and then it is drawn to the barn, afterwards threshed and last of all sifted and so it is with the harvest of men. The Lord sent His servants to reap for he has declared that the harvest was fully ripe and we have been brought to the barn, but we have yet to be threshed and sifted and perhaps the sifting time will be the worst to endure. Then the chaff and tares will be separated from the pure grain and will be ready for burning. The kingdom of heaven is like unto a net cast into the sea, but not until it was drawn to shore was the separation of the good and bad. That grain which cannot endure the shaking between the field and the barn is in great danger of being lost in the journey and if once separated from the sheaf and care of the farmer it is in danger of being devoured by the fowls and other enemies. And they that hang down its head for fear of the toils of harvesting is of very little worth to the farmer. Those that come to this land must set their minds firm to come through all and not flinch if death should stare them in the face. The Lord calls for valiant hearted men who are not afraid to die.⁶

These words were penned in 1840 by William Clayton, the eager young immigrant who wanted his friends in England to know that being a Saint was no easy matter. They might just as well have been penned thirty-nine years later by William Clayton the ill and aging Saint, whose life had encompassed nearly all the joys and struggles that could come to a Church member of his day. He had endured “the shaking between the field and the barn.” The “field” was England where he was among stalks of grain “white already to harvest” when Heber C. Kimball “thrust in his sickle with his might.” The “barn” was the Church—the Kingdom of God on Earth. There Clayton had been subject to the “sifting and sorting” that separates the wheat from the tares, and he had endured. His threshing and winnowing did not come in questioning the truth of the gospel, the authority of the Church, or the leadership of living apostles and prophets. Rather, it came in surviving such challenges as outside persecution, the hard times associated with building new frontier communities, and the disappointments that sometimes befell him because of the actions of other people as well as those of his own. Like most Saints, Clayton was far from perfect, but at least he had not hung down his head for fear of the toils of harvesting. On December 4, 1879, he left the earthly “barn” to reap whatever reward the Farmer had for him in the eternal worlds.

Clayton was the kind of disciple who would look back on his life and say that it took suffering as well as testimony to strengthen him for his greatest challenges: preaching the gospel; raising eight families; providing economically for those families; bringing in money from abroad for the sake of both himself and the Kingdom; sending out missionaries; confronting gentiles economically through ZCMI; battling apostasy. Each of these brought him disappointment in one way or another, but it would be like him to say that his problems were only means of preparing him for the great “sifting.” That his expectations were high is to be commended. That he had difficulty coping with disappointment is to be understood. That he was well equipped to make fresh assessments of his situation and renew his determined efforts to build the Kingdom is apparent from the story of his life. He summed up his own persistent lifetime attitudes on the plains of Iowa in 1846: “Gird up your loins, fresh courage take, Our God will never us forsake; And soon we’ll have this tale to tell—All is well! All is well!”

William Clayton was not unprepared for death; he even made preparations for his own funeral. In 1873 members of the School of the Prophets discussed death and decided to prepare individual statements concerning their own desires when that time should come. Clayton prefaced his note with a natural sentiment: “I desire to live as long as I can be useful to the Saints, and do good among my friends.” He was in no hurry to get on to his reward. When he went, however, he wanted a casket made of any durable hardwood except redwood, which he feared would stain the white temple robes in which he would be buried. The Saints were concerned with sacred symbols, and the white robes represented the priesthood as well as the purity of the Kingdom of God. Neither a symbolic stain nor an actual one should be allowed on either. As a further symbol of the Kingdom, Clayton insisted that no black clothing be worn at his funeral by any of his family, for, he said, “I regard that emblematic of Satan’s Kingdom, and the opposite of the uniform of Heaven.” Finally he wanted as little “ceremony and parade” as possible, evidently preferring something more symbolic of the peace he hoped to find beyond.⁷

Naturally he was concerned about how he might fare in the next life. If he could have listened to the Church leaders who spoke at his funeral, he would have been comforted. “He was not without his faults in the flesh,” said Elder Joseph F. Smith,

But what were they? Were they such as partook of a deadly character? Did he ever deny the prophet Joseph, or did he deny the truth or prove unfaithful to his covenants or to his brethren? No, never. . . . But not withstanding his unflinching integrity, and his long life of fidelity and usefulness, let me say to you, that as for his faults, however, trivial, or important, he must answer. But he will be able to pay for his debts and to answer for his failings, and he will come forth, and all that has been pronounced upon his head by Joseph Smith and the Apostles will be confirmed upon him through all eternity. . . .

Then let me say to the family of our deceased brother, follow in the footsteps of your husband and father, excepting wherein he may have manifested the weaknesses of the flesh; imitate his staunch integrity to the cause of Zion, and his fidelity to his brethren; be true as he was true, be firm as he was firm, never flinching, never swerving from the truth as God has revealed it to us; and I will promise you, in the name of the Lord, that you will rise to meet your husband and father, in the morning of the first resurrection, clothed with glory, immortality and eternal lives.

In the same spirit the new leader of the Church, John Taylor, sanctioned Elder Smith’s remarks and added, “If there were any weaknesses in him pass them by, and live for God and for truth. He will be all right.”⁸