The acclamation, the sincere and touching joy, with which Smith was received by men and women and children, were enough to raise any man in his own esteem, and to set free the ambition which had been perhaps drooping in confinement.
Smith had not been in Quincy twenty-four hours before he mastered the situation there in all its details.

He promptly sent out a decree against the new doctrine of what he called "lax manners." He preached a great sermon in the open air that night.

"A man shall kiss his own wife and daughters and no other women," said Smith.

The elders who had preached from St.Paul's texts on the subject were accused of error and called upon to recant.

Smith commanded that the women should work and the children should study, and he publicly pronounced Susannah to be a fitting model for the women and a fitting teacher for the young.
Susannah had not as yet met Smith face to face when she found herself made, as it were, an object of licensed admiration..