True to its word, the Church has closed the curtains on the Museum of Church History and Art’s Joseph Smith bicentennial exhibit, which ran from February 4, 2005 to January 16, 2006. The exhibit, which featured manuscripts of revelations, a Smith family record book, letters, clothing, fragments from the Nauvoo Temple baptismal font and Liberty Jail, and other artifacts, broke church museum records in drawing 437,787 visitors last year. One museum volunteer proudly noted: “One night we had 1,800 people between 6:30 and 8:30 p.m. You couldn’t even move.” Sounds like a good time, especially for pickpockets and claustrophobes.

BYU’s Special Collections, which is hosting a Joseph Smith exhibit that features first editions of the Book of Mormon, the Book of Commandments, Doctrine and Covenants, and first-run editions of early Mormon newspapers, is now running a monthly lecture series through April. Here is the schedule for the remaining lectures:

• Jill Mulvay Derr, “Determined Disciples: The Women who Sustained Joseph Smith,” (8 February 2006)

• James B. Allen, “Joseph Smith vs. John C. Calhoun: Presidential Politics and the States’ Rights Controversy,” (8 March 2006)

• Ronald K. Esplin, “Joseph and Brigham: The Nature of Discipleship” (12 April 2006)

Richard Lloyd Anderson spoke last week on the topic, “Joseph Smith’s Core Visions: Resolving a Family’s Religious Quest.” According to a BYU NewsNet article, Anderson, the author of Joseph Smith’s New England Heritage: Influences of Grandfathers Solomon Mack and Asael Smith, argued that “Joseph Smith’s revelations answered the three generational questions of salvation within the Smith Family,” suggesting that the revelations resolved the conflict between the Mack family’s Protestantism and the Smith family’s Universalism. Anderson also discussed the religious searchings and experiences of Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith, including Joseph Sr.’s dreams.

Anderson noted in Joseph Smith’s New England Heritage that Asael, Joseph Sr.’s father, “advocated the basic belief of the Universalists of his day,” and that he, along with his sons Jesse and Joseph, participated in the formation of a Universalist society in Tunbridge, Vermont, in 1797 (pp. 105-106). According to Anderson, Joseph Smith Sr.’s Universalism

was a philosophy, not commitment to that organized movement. His wife emphasizes that “he would not subscribe to any particular system of faith, but contended for the ancient order as established by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and his apostles.” Biographical Sketches, pp. 56-57.