Joseph made to soft soap and he had no doubt he meant to tell there were as fine men as him. When he returned from and related the history of his mission to brother Johnson— brother Johnson said, “well you are a fine man, but there is a possibility you may be more so”; and so he would say to , “he is a fine man but there is a possibility he may be more so.[”] As to the papers he believes in a variety of subjects, he likes some wise peices and would like some a little wiser. If he saw a piece presented for publication wherein the doctrines were incorrect he should be unwilling to have it published untill it was corrected. He was favorable to the plan of having men attend the meetings and [p. [240]]
To “soft soap” meant “to flatter; to blarney.” (Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms, 320.)
Bartlett, John Russell. Dictionary of Americanisms: A Glossary of Words and Phrases, Usually Regarded as Peculiar to the United States. New York: Bartlett and Welford, 1848.
Probably Lyman E. Johnson. Kimball’s daughter Helen Mar Kimball Whitney later recorded having stopped with her family at Johnson’s home at Richmond, Missouri, in the summer of 1838 on their way to Far West, Missouri, after Kimball’s first mission to England. Although Johnson had left the church by that point, Whitney noted that he “treated us with every kindness.” (Helen Mar Whitney, “Closing Paragraphs of Life Incidents,” Woman’s Exponent, 15 June 1881, 10:9.)