The Rocky Mountain Saints/Chapter 3

by T. B. H. Stenhouse

CHAPTER III.

THE GOLD PLATES.—Joseph translates the "Reformed Egyptian"—Martin Harris acts as Scribe—Professor Anthon pronounces the characters and translation "a hoax"—A prediction of Isaiah fulfilled—Satan and Mrs. Harris bring the Prophet into great trouble—Oliver Cowdery replaces Harris—John the Baptist ordains Smith and Cowdery—They baptize each other, prophesy and rejoice—Witnesses are chosen to testify to the Book of Mormon.

Forced to earn his bread by manual labour, Joseph "hired," in October, 1825, to an old gentleman who lived in Ohenango county, New York, who for a month employed him along with other men to "prospect " for a silver mine which the Spaniards were reported to have once worked in Harmony, Susquehanna county, Pennsylvania. From this originated the story of the Prophet being a money digger.

During this service he boarded at the house of a Mr. Isaac Hale, and won the affections of his daughter Emma, whom he married on the 18th of January, 1827, and who in course of time was designated in revelation as "The Elect Lady"^[1] of the Church. As the Hale family were opposed to the union, Joseph and his young bride betook themselves to his father's residence in New York.

The same year, on the 22nd of September, the time appointed having arrived, Joseph presented himself at the usual meeting-place, and from the hands of the angel received the plates, with the charge that he was now responsible for them, and if by any carelessness he permitted them to be taken from him he should be cut off; but if he did his best to preserve them till the messenger should call for them,^[2] he should be favoured with the Divine blessing and protection.

Joseph's former troubles were as nothing to what followed after he obtained possession of the plates. In his autobiography he says: "Multitudes were on the alert continually to get them from me if possible," but he succeeded in maintaining possession. Embarrassments increasing, and the bride's family being more favourably disposed, the young folks returned to her father's home, carrying with them the plates. They were assisted by one Martin Harris, who from this time occupies an important position in the development of the new faith, and becomes one of the "witnesses" to the Book of Mormon.

Martin Harris, the Prophet's Scribe

During the winter of 1827–8, Joseph copied a number of the engravings and translated them by means of the Urim and Thummim, and this copy and translation he placed in the

FACSIMILE OF A PORTION OF THE GOLD PLATES, AS SAID TO BE REPRESENTED ON THE PAPER WHICH JOSEPH SMITH GAVE TO MARTIN HARRIS AND WHICH HE SUBMITTED TO PROFESSOR ANTHON.

hands of Harris to take to New York city for the purpose of subjecting them to scientific scrutiny. It is probable that he was induced to take this step on account of a desire to that effect expressed by Harris, from whom he had already proposed to borrow funds for the publication of the volume when completed. Be this as it may, the circumstance was afterwards adduced as the fulfilment of a prophecy of Isaiah.^[3] The account which Harris himself gives of his visit to New York is as follows. He called, he says, upon Professor Anthon, a celebrated linguist, who, after examining the transcript of the characters, stated that they were Egyptian, and were correctly translated. The untranslated copy from the plates was said by the Professor to be Egyptian, Chaldee, Assyrian, and Arabic, and that the characters of those languages were truly rendered. He gave Harris a certificate to this effect, assuring all who might be interested in the matter, that the characters were genuine and the translation correct; but on hearing that young Smith claimed to have received the plates through the ministration of an angel, he took back the certificate and tore it in pieces, as he regarded the whole affair as an attempt to cheat Harris of the money which he proposed to raise from the mortgage of his farm, for the publication of the book.

Twelve years subsequently, Professor Anthon published a very different account of this interview. He represented the characters as a singular medley of "Greek, Hebrew, and all sorts of letters, more or less distorted either through unskilfulness or design, and intermingled with sundry delineations of half-moons, stars, and other natural objects, the whole ending in a rude representation of the Mexican zodiac." The more the man of literature denounced the affair as a mere hoax, the more the Mormon writers saw the actual fulfilment of the prophecy and believed that the Book of Mormon, the Professor, Martin Harris, and all this controversy, were the subjects of Hebrew inspiration.

Notwithstanding the temporary financial aid which was rendered to Joseph by Martin, and the fulfilment of prophecy in the person of that worthy, human weakness was destined to interfere and the' purposes of the heavens to be somewhat disarranged by his instrumentality, much to the chagrin of Joseph, and the subsequent annoyance of the disciples of Mormonism.

In the autobiography published in the "Pearl of Great Price," no mention is made of this trouble, and the unsophisticated reader would naturally suppose that "the Lord" had wisely chosen fitting instruments for His work and that His purposes had been attained, when it is stated that "two days after the arrival of Mr. Cowdery (being the 17th day of April) I commenced to translate the Book of Mormon, and he commenced to write for me." This, however, is not the whole truth, but it is here noticed as one of the bad features of modern revelation. Some one is for ever trying to make the relations between the heavens and the earth better than they actually are.

Preceding the advent of Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris was Joseph's scribe while he was translating the plates. The spouse of Harris was undeveloped in her spiritual nature in the Mormon sense, and, seeing her husband devoting much of his time and not a little of his money in aid of the work, she resolved to have some satisfaction. Martin, willing to meet the demands of his wife and her abettors, importuned Joseph for permission to exhibit the translation. "The Lord" warned Joseph of Martin's weakness, and the latter was strenuously resisted for a time. But Satan, ever ready to take advantage of a woman's weakness, was powerful with Mrs. Harris, and 116 pages of the translation of the bona fide Book of Mormon were at length obtained from Joseph under the most sacred pledge of faithful preservation and restoration.

The manuscript, once out of the hands of the youthful Prophet, was gone for ever, and the difficulty was to replace it. Joseph was terribly humiliated, suffered intensely, and lost the "gift" by which he had been able to translate, and in this way the work was suspended from July, 1828, till the appearance of Cowdery, as stated, in 1829. Thus, through the strategy of the devil, all this important history was lost, besides nearly eighteen months of valuable time, from December, 1827, when Harris first began his work as copyist. But Satan had still greater affliction in store for the young Prophet. The ablest scholars can rarely make two translations precisely alike from any foreign language, for the idiomatic expressions of one tongue often find several equivalents in another, and when the translation has been made from hieroglyphics, in which a sign represents a sentence or a paragraph, the difficulty of obtaining two perfectly similar translations is proportionately increased. Joseph understood this. His soul was sick, and " the Lord," ever ready to aid the penitent, came to his assistance, denounced Martin Harris as "a wicked man," and revealed to the Prophet how the difficulty could be obviated.

In the revelation which he then received,^[4] Joseph was informed that Satan had inspired Martin Harris and his friends to get possession of the manuscript, and that they had determined that, if his second translation differed from theirs, they would expose him, and say that he was an impostor and had only pretended to translate, and, should he make a perfect duplicate of the first, they would alter their copy, and so make him contradict himself. To circumvent all this, Joseph was instructed that among the plates a "Book of Nephi" existed, and that that would serve the purpose equally as well as the lost manuscript. Joseph obeyed the heavenly oracle, and thus the sacred volume now actually commences with the Book of Nephi, instead of the Book of Mormon as originally intended. In this way was lost that narrative which had been so carefully prepared by an ancient Judo-American prophet and engraver, under such very trying circumstances: a narrative which, according to Joseph, had been hidden up in the stone box at least twelve hundred years, until finally revealed by an angel of God for the salvation of the human family, and for the preservation of which Joseph had already suffered much persecution. Mrs. and Mr. Harris have much to answer for.

Some persons may have read the Book of Mormon through consecutively, but as a general thing, even among the Mormons, the foundation of their faith is never boasted of as being an interesting document. The substitution, therefore, of Nephi for a commencement, instead of that intended by "the Lord" but stolen by the devil, has not probably caused any irrelevancy nor cut the thread of the story if it ever had one.

With the assistance of Oliver Cowdery as scribe, the translation went on without interruption and the character of "the kingdom" was gradually developed. They came to a portion of the narrative that informed them that baptism by immersion for the remission of sins had been taught and commanded to the ancient inhabitants of America, and the translator, ever eager to know his "privileges," proposed, on the 15th of May, that they should retire to the woods, and "inquire of the Lord."

"While we were thus employed, praying and calling upon the Lord, a messenger from heaven descended in a cloud of light, and having laid his hands upon us he ordained us, saying unto us: 'Upon you, my fellowservants, in the name of the Messiah, I confer the Priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels and of the Gospel of repentance and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; and this shall never again be taken from the earth until the sons of Levi do offer again an offering unto the Lord in righteousness.' He said this Aaronic Priesthood had not the power of laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, but that this should be conferred on us hereafter, and he commanded us to go and be baptized, and gave us directions that I should baptize Oliver Cowdery, and, afterwards, that he should baptize me."^[5]

This "messenger" asserted that he was John the Baptist, and that he acted under the direction of Peter, James, and John, who held the priesthood of Melchisedec, which in due time was to be conferred upon them when they would take rank—Joseph as the first elder and Oliver the second. As instructed, they went into the water together, and Joseph baptized Oliver by immersion, and he in turn immersed Joseph. The latter laid his hands upon Oliver's head and ordained him to the Aaronic priesthood, and Oliver afterwards laid his hands upon Joseph's head and ordained him to the same priesthood—"for so we were commanded."

As they came out of the water they "experienced great and glorious, blessings." "The Holy Ghost fell upon Oliver and he prophesied," and then Joseph "stood up and prophesied." They had a happy time together, but, owing to the persecuting disposition of the unbelievers, they kept their baptism and ordination and rejoicings a secret for a time.

The First Mormon Baptism.

The preparatory work was now fast advancing. Joseph was rapidly developing, and Oliver was an excellent scribe. Three "witnesses" were to be favoured with a "manifestation" and, from among the personal friends of Joseph, David Whitmer was selected to join Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris with the assurance that if they would exercise faith they should have a view of the plates and also of the Urim and Thummim. They did exercise faith, and in their "testimony," prefixed to the Book of Mormon, they "declare with words of soberness that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates and the engravings thereon."^[6] This event occurred, according to Mormon chronology, in June or July, 1829. Another "testimony" is given to the world by eight witnesses the father and two brothers of Joseph, four of the Whitmer family, and one Page. They affirm that they had seen the original plates, "hefted" them, and that they had "the appearance of gold, and were of ancient work and curious workmanship."

In the commencement of 1830 the translation was published under the title of The Book of Mormon, and thus was laid the foundation of the new faith.

1. Mrs. Smith had an extraordinary influence over Joseph. She was to him what Cadijah was to Mohammed. When Ayesha, a youthful beauty of his harem, suggested that Allah had given the Arabian Prophet a better wife instead of Cadijah; in the mingled passions of grief for her loss, affection for the wife of his youth, and indignation at the insinuation of a better, his manly soul exclaimed:—"Never did God give me a better! When I was poor, she enriched me; when I was pronounced a liar, she believed in me; when I was opposed by all the world, she remained true to me." Till polygamy came, the same might be said of Emma Smith. She was Cadijah to Joseph, and he loved her as intensely as did the Arabian his faithful wife.
2. To the Mormons it appeared right enough that the angel should retake possession of the plates after Joseph had translated the portion entrusted to him. Others have taken a rather different view of the transaction.
3. Isa. xxix.
4. "Doctrine and Covenants," p. 169.
5. "Pearl of Great Price," p. 46.
6. The Author entered into correspondence with one of the Whitmers to elicit from him information concerning his mental condition during the time that he affirms he saw the plates. Whitmer was asked if he was in his usual condition of consciousness and was sensible of surrounding objects while he beheld the plates; but he refused to answer the enquiry. Harris is reported to have said that he witnessed them by "the eye of faith."