Joseph Smith — "I calculate to be one of the instruments of setting up the kingdom of Daniel."
I calculate to be one of the instruments of setting up the kingdom of Daniel.
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Understanding this quote
What it means
The speaker declares himself a chosen agent in establishing a divine kingdom prophesied in the biblical Book of Daniel—a kingdom that would fill the earth and never be destroyed. He isn't claiming passive faith but active, calculated participation: he sees himself as a divinely appointed instrument deliberately working toward a world-altering religious and political transformation with cosmic stakes.
Relevance to Joseph Smith
Smith founded the Latter-day Saint movement believing he was called by God to restore the true church after centuries of apostasy. He translated the Book of Mormon, received ongoing revelations, and literally organized a theocratic city-state in Nauvoo, Illinois. His Council of Fifty was explicitly designed as the embryonic government of God's earthly kingdom, making this statement a direct expression of his deepest institutional ambitions.
The era
In 1840s frontier America, millennial expectations ran extraordinarily high across Protestant denominations. The Second Great Awakening had primed thousands to believe Christ's return was imminent. Smith's statement emerged amid intense American nationalism, Manifest Destiny rhetoric, and widespread belief that America held prophetic significance—making his claim to build Daniel's eternal kingdom resonate powerfully with contemporaries already primed for apocalyptic fulfillment.
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