14. Parley P. Pratt Papers, Church Archives. Joseph Smith allegedly told his private secretary, "Freemasonry was the apostate endowment as sectarian religion was the apostate religion." Benjamin F. Johnson, My Life's Review (Independence, Mo.: Zion's Press, 1947), 96. This argument is further strengthened by the fact that during the Nauvoo period neither apostates, like John C. Bennett and Increase Van Dusen (who were Mormons, Masons, and anti-Mormon writers), nor anti-Mormon Masonic officials ever accused Joseph Smith of stealing Masonic secrets and incorporating them into the endowment ceremony.

In reference to the highly debated question of the origins and antiquity of the Masonic order (which in its present form dates from 1717 in London), it is interesting to note that the date on the cornerstone of the Nauvoo Masonic Hall is A.L. 5843, which means Anno Lucis (in the year of light); reckoning the era from the creation of the world in 4000 B.C., A.L. 5843 then is the equivalent of A.D. 1843.