He was a most strenuous worker…. You could go up to his office in the Beehive House almost any night, when he was well, and find him writing letters or attending to some other work. Perhaps some dear old soul had written him a personal letter, and he would work into the night answering it with his own hand. He lived in close communion with the spirit of the Lord, and his life was so exemplary and chaste, that the Lord could easily manifest himself to his servant…. The heart of President Joseph F. Smith was attuned to the Celestial melodies ~ he could hear, and did hear. I can say of Joseph F. Smith as Carlyle said of Luther, that he was truly a great man, "Great in intellect, in courage, in affection, and integrity. Great, not as a hewn obelisk, but as an alpine mountain!" No heart ever beat truer to every principle of manhood and righteousness and justice and mercy than his; that great heart, encased in his magnificent frame, made his the biggest, the braves, the most tender, the most pure, and best of all men who walked the earth in his time.

JOSEPH F. SMITH was born at Far West, Missouri, November 13, 1838 and was five and a half years old when his father, Hyrum Smith, was martyred. His mother was Mary Fielding Smith, Before he was ten he drove his mother's ox team across the 1,000 miles of plains to the Salt Lake Valley. At the age of fifteen he was a missionary to the Hawaiian Islands. He later served on three missions to Great Britain and a second mission to Hawaii. He was ordained a Seventy March 29, 1858 and was ordained a High Priest October 16, 1859. He was a member of the Utah Territorial Legislature from 1865 to 1874 and participated in the Constitutional Convention of 1882. July 1, 1866 he was ordained an apostle by Brigham Young. He served as a counselor in the First Presidency to President John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, and Lorenzo Snow and was sustained President of the Church October 17, 1901. He initiated the temple building in Hawaii and Canada. He passed away in Salt Lake City November 19, 1918.