‘The Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon’ — by Elder James H. Moyle
Given in a Sacrament Meeting of the Fourth Ward of the Pioneer Stake in Salt Lake City, on March 18, 1945
I have been invited to speak about David Whitmer and the witnesses of the Book of Mormon. I appreciate very much the prayer that was offered in my behalf this evening, and I pray that I may present to you in a way that will be pleasing to the Lord a subject that I think is of very great interest to the Latter-day Saints. I grew up in the early days of the Church, in this city, when we had more frequent spiritual demonstrations than we have now. Persecution was rampant; faith and reliance on the Lord were correspondingly greater. I was on a mission in the 1870’s in North Carolina. We frequently had to look to the Lord for help and for safety. So I was deeply impressed with my religion. We felt certain that the Lord was with us and enjoyed a serenity and comforting assurance throughout it all that could only come from Heaven, and we were always ready to go where duty called us as missionaries, without fear of consequences. It is a fact that we often said that Satan did not want us to go where we seemed to be called and therefore an added reason why we should go, and we did so. I came home from my mission and the following year went East to school. During that time I read in one of the local papers that David Whitmer was alive and had given a very interesting interview to a newspaper man which aroused my interest, and I determined that when I returned home I would see him, if he was still living.
The Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith’s early life and work have always had a charm for me. It is the basis of our faith, and upon the divinity of that Book, brothers and sisters, rests the truth of our religion. If that Book is not a divine record, then we are a deluded people. My interest in religion caused me to go to Yucatan for no other purpose than to see some of the remarkable ruins that the Spanish conquerors found when they came to America. I have been a member of the American Archaeological Society, also The American Anthropological Society, not as a scientist but as a student of the Book of Mormon. It is an absorbing subject. My interest in such vital things, in addition to my natural desire for travel and a desire to see things that interest me, took me to Egypt and Palestine also. These personal references are made to give you something of my state of mind. When I graduated from school I made my way to Richmond, Missouri at the last of June 1885. There was only one train a day in and out of that town. I therefore had to remain there during the night. It was a small town, something like our nice little country towns here in Utah, in a farming section of the country. There was a bus to meet the train, drawn by horses of course. I sat on the seat with the driver and there I began my investigation of David Whitmer, and I continued it for one day. I talked with the driver. He said David Whitmer was a highly respected citizen of Richmond. I stopped at the local hotel and talked with the clerk, and he gave me the same response, as did everyone I approached.
In the newspaper article which I mentioned, the statement was made that David Whitmer was pestered with curiosity seekers who had heard that he had seen an angel from heaven; so I brought along a nice little present for him to show I was really interested, and induced a friend of his to give me a favorable introduction. We went to his home. It was a plain, simple little two-story building with one or two fruit trees in front of it, with no other ornamentation. We didn’t have lawns there in those days. He was sitting in front of the house under a fruit tree in his shirt sleeves. I said to him that I was born in the Church, that my mother was born in the early days of the church in Illinois, that my father came to Utah in his teens, a boy alone in the world without relatives in America, and it was all for their religion. I stated that my mother’s father had given up a good home and farm for the gospel, and that he went to Kirtland in 1834 and built a nice home and barn. That, too, was given up for the Gospel’s sake, and he went to Missouri where his resources were exhausted, and in the late Fall of 1838 he built a simple rough log cabin in Far West, from which place they were again driven by organized military mobs early in the spring of 1839. Then they, with their resources exhausted, had to either go east, or out into the Indian country. My mother was born shortly after their arrival in Illinois. My grandfather Moyle pulled a handcart every foot of the way from the Missouri River to this valley. My mother saw him as he entered it, and said his fingers looked like the claws of a bird and he much like that of a skeleton of a man. Nothing could induce him to leave the task he had undertaken. His children did help him some, but he was as immovable in his work as in his faith. They endured all the hardship of their time.
I said I grew up in the pioneer days of Utah, believing devotedly in my religion. I told Mr. Whitmer that I had just graduated from the University of Michigan as a lawyer and was about to commence my life’s work as he was preparing to lay his down. I begged of Mr. Whitmer to not let me go through life believing in a vital falsehood. I pointedly asked him if his testimony, as published in the Book of Mormon, was true. Was there any possibility for him to have been deceived in any particular? His answer was unequivocal — that there was no question about its truthfulness, that the angel stood in a little clear space in the woods, with nothing between them but a fallen log, the angel on one side, the witnesses on the other. IT was all in broad clear daylight, that he saw the plates and heard the angel with unmistakable clearness, and there was nothing to prevent the same. He was 80 years old, perfectly gray, serious minded, and beyond question sincere. His mind seemed perfectly clear. He moved about with freedom, and lived three years after with his mind normal. I had just graduated from law school. He was the first witness I ever attempted to cross-examine, and I did so with all the intensity of my compelling desire to know the truth. The interview lasted two and one half hours. I exhausted all my resources, and he was very kind and willing to aid me. There was only one thing that did not fully satisfy me. I had difficulty then, as I have now, to describe just what was unsatisfactory. I wrote in my diary immediately on my return home, that in describing the scene in the woods he was “somewhat spiritual in his explanations and not as materialistic as I wished.” That was my description then and I cannot make it any clearer now. Mr. Whitmer said, “It was indescribable; it was through the power of God.” He then spoke of Paul hearing and seeing Christ, but his associates did not, because it is only seen in the Spirit. I asked if the atmosphere about them was normal. Then he said it was indescribable, but the light was bright and clear, yet apparently a different kind of light, something of a soft haze, I concluded. A few years before, in an interview with President Joseph F. Smith and Apostle Orson Pratt, they reported that he said it was more brilliant than that of the noonday sun.
I have wondered if there was a special significance, not clear to me, in the language used by the three witnesses in their testimony referring to the golden plates, “And they have been shown unto us by the power of God and not of man.” The eight witnesses said that the plates were shown unto them by Joseph Smith. That I would call ‘materialistic’, the other spiritual, and could not get anything more out of it. In this connection, I was greatly interested when I read the statement made by John Whiter, one of the eight witnesses, after he had left the Church and was excommunicated. The apostles had been commanded by revelation to take their leave for this various fields of labor from the temple lot at Far West, Missouri, on the 26th of April, 1839. John Whitmer and some other apostates with Samuel Bogart, a leading mobocrat, came to the Committee on the removal of the Saints from Missouri on April 5th and read to them the revelation calling for the meeting of April 26, and with derisive laughter and assurance urged that the revelation could not be fulfilled as the apostles would be murdered if they came in reach of the mob and therefore they should repudiate Joseph Smith. Theodore Turley jumped up and said, “In the name of God that revelation will be fulfilled.” John Whitmer hung his head, while the others laughed in scorn. Theodore Turley also aked John Whitmer if his testimony regarding the Book of Mormon was true and Whitmer answered, “I now say, I handled those plates; there were fine engraving on both sides, and they were shown to me by a supernatural power.” What was meant by a supernatural power harmonized with what David Whitmer and the three witnesses said. What better test could there have been? It must have been a tense moment in John Whitmer’s life. But to me it intensified its importance. There was evidently something connected with the scene which can be described by the word ‘spiritual’. The clear inference is that it was all done through the instrumentality and power of God. And for us it is a matter of faith, and only by faith and living in the light of Truth can we either know, or after knowing, retain, the knowledge of divine operations. The Savior Himself said one of the most significant things ever uttered: “I am the Light of the world, and he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” It does not matter what knowledge many may acquire of things spiritual. He can only retain them and walk in the ‘Light of Life’ by living in harmony with that light.
All of the three witnesses left the Church; three of the eight witnesses left the Church; three of the counselors of the Prophet Joseph Smith left the Church, and six of the original members of the Council of the Twelve left the Church, including the President of the Council, Thomas B. Marsh. Some of these men returned to the Church. In each case it was because they lost that ‘Light of Life’ and walked in darkness. So we may have a knowledge of the most precious truth of life and eternal salvation and still lose the same, walk in the darkness and not comprehend the light that is just as brilliant and apparent as ever to those who do walk in the light of life. Paul said, “For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God…but the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” I was present, as a boy of 12 years of age, when Martin Harris came to Utah and I heard him bear his testimony in the Salt Lake Tabernacle in which he expressed his deep regret for having left the Church and his gratitude for having come back, and repeated his declaration concerning the divinity of this work and the Book of Mormon.
I was very well acquainted with the son of Sidney Rigdon, a lawyer of New York City, who joined the Church in his latter days and came to Salt Lake and lived in the same ward that I lived in. Sidney Rigdon, First Counselor to Joseph Smith, left the Church, returned to Pittsburgh and there had his own church, which did not last long after his death, but out of which was organized a church which still exists, chiefly in Pittsburgh, though it has members scattered in several nearby states. I am sorry that I do not remember its name. They base their faith on the Book of Mormon and do not follow the Doctrine and Covenants. Many of their members are American-Italians who live in Pennsylvania. On my eastern states mission I found two of them, members of our branch of the Church in New Haven, Connecticut. I also found one of Sidney Rigdon’s church former apostles as the president of our little branch of the church in New England near Pittsburgh. Members of that branch of the Church were originally Rigdonites. Sidney Rigdon’s son said his father never gave up his faith in the Book of Mormon and the divinity of the Church organized by the Prophet Joseph Smith, but on the contrary firmly adhered to it and taught it to him and his family. You know that there were a great many churches organized by disaffected and excommunicated members of the Church like Sidney Rigdon. There was a vitality in their faith and knowledge that made it impossible to easily abandon. The Rigdon ‘apostle’ who presided over our New England branch had the gift of healing so clearly and it was so manifest that many had great faith in him. He had been a strong leader and we had difficulty in keeping him in line. He lacked humility and wanted to be free to act in harmony with his views rather than harmonize with the leadership of the established LDS mission and the church leaders. We succeeded in replacing him with his son without a very great disturbance in the branch. The father, a good man but possessed of those characteristics which lead to dissension, is an excellent example of many of those who left the church and organized their own churches following the martyrdom of the Prophet.
Oliver Cowdery was a lawyer and I presume a capable man while out of the Church, but he never got anywhere to speak of, though he was a county attorney in Michigan. He finally returned to the Church greatly broken and humbled. David Whitmer told me about Oliver Cowdery coming back to Richmond after rejoining the Church at Winter Quarters and that he died there shortly after. David Whitmer said that Oliver urged him to be true to his testimony of the divinity of the Book of Mormon, when he lived with him just before his death. Oliver, like Martin Harris, closed his life a member of the Church after passing through trials calculated to keep him out of the Church. To me, that, like the testimony of David Whitmer at the close of his life, and as was the case with all the three witnesses, is more impressive than if they had remained steadfast in the Church living in the enjoyment of its favors and the applause of its rapidly growing membership. Each of them lived in obscurity and without many of the comforts of life or the applause of the many who would have honored and nurtured them if they had continued in the Church. Martin Harris died a very poor man. The same was the fact as to Oliver Cowdery. Thomas B. Marsh would have been present of the Church in the place of Brigham Young had he remained an apostle and true to his faith. While I do not know anything about the financial conditions of David Whitmer, I took it for granted that he was a man in very ordinary financial circumstances, and I am morally certain that that was the case.
Hence, money, the comforts of life, and applause of men had little influence on the lives of each of the three witnesses, but their devotion to the testimony of the divinity of the Book of Mormon never wavered in all the vicissitudes of their lives. Either could have sold a denial of the truthfulness of their testimony for what to them in their circumstances would have been a very large sum of money. Millions probably have been spent to expose and defeat Mormonism. The National Government sent officials to Utah who thought it was their duty to reform the Mormons. The great orthodox evangelical churches, in connection with social reformers, circulated national petitions to the Government to eliminate the evils of Mormonism. There was practically no limit to the efforts to expose and destroy the effects of Mormonism. Social reformers have been deeply interested, and politics (both local and national) have been disturbed and very much involved in the subject. Anti-Mormon books and publications have been printed by the thousands and hundreds of thousands. A million dollars could easily have been raised to expose and secure the defeat of Mormon influence. Nothing would have been so effective as a convincing declaration by either of the three Special Witnesses of the falsity of their testimony to the divinity of the Book of Mormon. It would have been front page news for all the great newspapers. The Encyclopedia Britannica, and I think one other encyclopedia, in an edition published not long before David Withmer’s death, rendered a real service to our Church in disguise by repeating and giving credit to the falsehood circulated by enemies of the Book of Mormon that David Whitmer had repudiated his testimony of the divinity of the Book of Mormon. This provoked a formal denial from David Whitmer, and that the contrary was the truth, supported by a statement from the leading citizens of Richmond and the county officials of the county in which Richmond is located, all of whom not only joined in the denial but asserted that David Whitmer had consistently adhered to his testimony, and that he was a highly respected citizen of the community. It is important to me that notwithstanding all of the defections of men who were so close to the Prophet, I have no recollection of any one of them, and I am sure it is true as to the three witnesses of the Book of Mormon, who ever denied the truthfulness of the declaration made in the Book of Mormon by them. If there had been fraud in this matter, Joseph Smith would have cultivated those men and kept them with him at any cost. The truth is that when they became unworthy they were excommunicated, whether they were on of the witnesses to the Book of Mormon, counselors to the president or apostles. It does not appear, I say again, that there is evidence that Joseph Smith did anything more than was clearly his duty to keep these men around him, but on the contrary he did that which alienated them.
Coming back to my story, I asked David Whitmer why he left the Church. His answer thrilled me more than any other statement that he made that day. It was the greatest surprise of the interview. I was not familiar then with his history after leaving the Church. He proclaimed, “I never left the Church. Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet and I accepted nothing revealed to him after 1835, because I did not know whether it came from God or Sidney Rigdon. he introduced into the Church many innovations. I have presided over a brand of the Church here in Richmond ever since the 1830’s.” The surprise and thrill of this was due to the way he said it, the way he looked, and the circumstances surrounding the interview. The spontaneous expression of his thoughts came as if from the very depth of his soul — “Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet of God”, which he spoke so impressively, the most important fact that I was seeking. Joseph could not have fallen, if he had not been a prophet of God. That fact, that knowledge in David Whitmer was as manifest as the fact that he sat before me. The conviction came to me as clearly as the sunshine, that if David Whitmer knew anything of the facts, it was that Joseph Smith, in the bringing forth of the Book of Mormon and organization of the Church, was a Prophet of God. The testimony of the Three Witnesses was the truth and nothing but the truth. David Whitmer knew the Prophet as few if any knew him better, so far as the bringing forth of the Book of Mormon was concerned. It was he who went to Harmony, Pennsylvania and brought the Prophet, his wife, and Oliver Cowdery to the home of David’s father, to live there and complete the translation of the BOok of Mormon. There they all lived for months in a small home – Joseph Smith, his wife, Oliver Cowdery, Father and Mother Peter Whitmer, four sons, and a daughter. That is 10 people in about as close and intimate relationship as could possibly be. The fifth son lived in the same home yard with his wife in a smaller older log building. That friendly relationship continued until the disaffection, excommunication, and final separation of David. If there was anyone who had the opportunity of knowing the Prophet in the most vital months of translating the Book of Mormon, other than Oliver Cowdery, it was the five sons of Father and Mother Whitmer, whose names appear in the Book of Mormon among the eleven special witnesses to its divinity, and David was selected to be one of the three who not only saw the plates and engraving thereon, but saw and heard the messenger from Heaven who “brought and laid the plates before his eyes”, and he and they, the three witnesses, declare that they “beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon”, and that the “voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it”, which they did throughout their lives, even when groping in darkness and the loss of the divine “light of life” and in antagonism to Joseph Smith and the body of the Church. Due to lack of information on the subject, there seems to be some uncertainty about whether the Whitmers lived in the new 6-roomed home or the old log 3-roomed one that preceded it. Certainly they lived in the new one if erected because it was larger and an improvement on the old, and there is evidence of that fact. The old log home, according to the best available evidence, consisted of three rooms, one large, in which it was the custom of the time to cook, eat, sit, and frequently, if not regularly, to sleep. To me there is no speculation about that because on my mission in 1879 and 1880 with my companion, we lived for a day at a time in our living quarters with a very nice, fine, intelligent family, and they were not so exceptional. The wife’s father was a well-to-do slave owner. She and her family were living with husband and 3 small children all in one large log room. I was very proud of the fact that I baptized them. They moved to Salem, Oregon and saw better days. It should be remembered that this was only 14 years after the South was defeated and saw for many years a poverty now hard to understand. While I was there women would wash almost from daylight to darkness for 25 cents a day and meals, and husky boys worked on farms similar hours for $60.00 a year, and a pair or two of overalls and shirts or something of the kind added, the total amounting to little more than $5 a month. The beds in which we slept were in the far end with two trundle beds underneath which were wheeled out for night use only. The prevailing style of the time did not make such shocking. They were not tenant farmers. They owned their own farm, of over 100 acres, on which cotton, tobacco, corn, gubers, and sweet potatoes were grown. The father was a sober, hard working man, in so sense trifling. Some of our leading and best statesmen of today came from many such families. The wife of a presiding bishop of the Church came from a very choice family which, following the Civil War, suffered comparably and lived not so far away.
Father Whitmer was of an old Pennsylvania Dutch family. His home in Fayette, New York was and still is one of the best evidences of the substantial character of the family. I am reasonably certain that it compared favorably with the best home of Joseph Smith’s time, and the family was one of the highly respected ones of the community. No wonder the 5 sons were favored as witnesses of the divinity of the Book of Mormon. An examination of the barn at the Whitmer farm home as it now stands disclosed to me that its builders, in the 1830’s, were substantial men. The well-hewn hardwood massive timbers show not only their age but solidity. The fact that they were a part of the Whitmer’s work is well established. The colonial architecture of the home is silent evidence of the quality and character of its builders.
The declaration of David Whitmer, that Joseph Smith was a fallen Prophet in 1836, coming as it did, removed all doubt in my mind about the sincerity and honesty of David Whitmer’s testimony as published in the Book of Mormon in 1830. He said, furthermore, that Sidney Rigdon’s influence over the Prophet was so great that he did not accept any revelation received by the Prophet after 1835, because he did not know whether it came from the Lord or Sidney Rigdon. It is interesting to note that the Doctrine and Covenants contains 135 revelations and that 108 of them were received before 1836. The age and lack of intellectual opportunities of Joseph Smith are added evidence of the fact that he was a great prophet. His surroundings were those of the pioneers and frontiersman. Those 108 revelations before the Prophet was 30 years old contain the fundamentals of the most important essentials of the most perfect religious organization ever created. I doubt that there is any other more perfect organization in existence. The name of The Church of Jesus Christ alone is an indication of where it came from and what it is. I say with confidence that of all the Christian churches organized by great reformers and intellectual religious leaders, the names of which churches generally followed that of the reformer, or some notable feature of their faith, like, for example, the Presbyterians, none of them ever called their church the church of what should be the real author of the same – The Church of Jesus Christ – until after Joseph Smith did. Referring again to the perfection of the organization of the Church, several noted scholars have stated that the best place to study commonwealth building methods and materials is in the old pioneer Mormon Utah towns and in the old New England primitive settlements. Vice President Wallace followed this advice. He visited the remote sections of Utah, including Orderville, to learn what he could about the United Order and of the efforts generally of President Brigham Young to establish a new social order of life. I was asked to sit beside him in our beautiful chapel in Washington when he, shortly after his visit to Utah, attended our evening Sacrament service, and he was deeply interested as a social thinker, student, and author on social welfare problems. Great men interested in those problems, like Tolstoi and many lesser lights, could be mentioned, but my subject is the witnesses of the Book of Mormon, and David Whitmer in particular.
Those 108 revelations received before 1836, when Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God, according to David Whitmer, were, I repeat, received when that Prophet was just emerging from boyhood on the frontier of the United States, with practically no education, no library, and very few sources of information within his reach. Can we not say, indeed, it is a marvelous work and a wonder, and did not the Angel Moroni’s coming have something to do with it all? David Whitmer’s charge that Sidney Rigdon corrupted the work of the Prophet was so outstanding and notable that I concluded that it was at least partially due to jealousy originating in his, Sidney Rigdon’s, having been promoted in high office over the prominent older members in the Church. That jealousy may have greatly influenced him as it probably did others, and may partially, at least, account for so many having become disaffected. I have often wondered why Joseph Smith did not honor the Special Witnesses of the divinity of the book of Mormon with important postilions in the Church, if it were only to keep them in line with him. That failure is significant and real evidence of his not being an imposter. In that interview I did my best to ascertain if money could influence David Whitmer, when he showed me what he called the original copy of the translation of the Book of Mormon, which he did with apparent great pride and interest. I asked him what he would sell if for, but he would not even discuss the subject. Finally I asked if he would not consider any sum of money for it and he clearly indicated he would not. I suggested the danger of the manuscript being destroyed by fire or otherwise, and the desirability of its being kept in a fireproof vault. To that he clearly indicated his confidence in the Lord in preserving it. He said that when the great cyclone a few years before struck Richmond and destroyed many homes, including his own completely except the room in which the manuscript was kept, it was not injured at all. It appeared to be in excellent condition. When President Joseph F. Smith and Apostle Orson Pratt interviewed him 7 or 8 years earlier, they saw the manuscript, and President Smith informed me that it was not the original but was the printer’s copy, that the Church has a fragment of the original copy. Sometime after the death of David Whitmer the manuscript went into the possession of the Reorganized church. David Whitmer clearly believed that the manuscript was divinely preserved and that its care was a sacred trust in him. And so far as I could observe, money had no value to him compared with that of the manuscript, notwithstanding his circumstances in life.
Another thing that greatly impressed me was the fact that he did not appear to have changed in any way materially from, as I fancied it, his condition when he left the Church. He had the appearance of one of our good old time Mormon friends such as you could find in almost any of our like Mormon farming communities. There was no evidence of growth or development in him. He was merely a plain citizen of Richmond, his only distinction being that he was one of the Three Witnesses. I concluded then that he was just like a clock which marked the hour when it ceased to go. martin harris was the same, and I am confident that was true of Oliver Cowdery and Thomas B. March. The apostles I knew, who were appointed before they came to Utah, were outstanding men who clearly indicated exactly the opposite. They continued to develop and were impressive characters. Just before David Whitmer passed away he called his family around his death-bed, and after asking his doctor if he was in his right mind, and being told he was, he bore his final testimony to them of the divinity of the Book of Mormon. At my age I am sometimes surprised, when confronted with the written record of former times, with changes that through the slow process of time have taken place in my memory of facts. That which was long ago become somewhat different, to my surprise, in some things. Hence I am not so certain of my memory as I used to be. But I am pleased to say that generally my memory, of old time facts especially, is very good. Of late my memory has been confirmed by numerous checks which have been made on it from old records, reaching back especially to the 1870’s through the 1890’s. I find that I have forgotten much that David Whitmer said about priesthood, polygamy, and wherein the Prophet and the Church had departed from first principles, which he emphasized. That did not impress me. My mind was absorbed with one question — wa the printed testimony of David Whitmer the truth, and nothing but the truth? I feel assured that my memory as to the facts stated is good, because I have so often thought about the same and spoken concerning it.
As soon as I returned home following my interview with David Whitmer, I wrote in my diary a rough memorandum of what I could recall and thought important of the interview, with no idea of its being published 60 years hence, or I would probably have given it more attention. It reads as follows: “DAVID WHITMER, copy of diary note made on Sunday, June 28, 1885 — I called on David Whitmer, and was introduced by William Marshall. Mr. Whitmer conversed and showed me the papers for two and one half hours. He was very kind but had trouble in keeping on the point at issue. He was somewhat spiritual in his explanations. He was not as materialistic in his descriptions as I had wished. He said the true Church name was “The Church of Christ”. He changed from this name made in Kirtland, Ohio in 1835 or about this time. The name was recorded in the County seat as above. Both Mr. Whitmer and his son claim to belong to the Church of Christ, but not the one incorporated or that pays tithing, yet David Whitmer admits that there was something like tithing in the CHurch in Joseph Smith’s day, but that it was introduced by Sidney Rigdon. He claimed that Mr. Rigdon was the means of making many innovations in the Church. David Whitmer is now 80 years old. He is somewhat feeble but claims that he will preserve the manuscript, and should he die, God will raise up another, which indications would point to his only son, the living man who seems to thoroughly imbibe the ideas of his father, and would seem to be after his father’s own heart. They both disbelieve in the Church of Jesus Christ in Utah or the Josephites. Mr. Whitmer says there is no High Priesthood on the earth at present, that Christ is the only High Priest, that there is but one Priesthood and in it are only Elders, Priests, Teachers, and Deacons. Mr. Whitmer said he did not ‘handle’ the plates, but that he only saw them. He said Martin Harris and Oliver Cowdery did handle the plates, so they say. He says he did see them and the angel and heard the angel speak, but that it ws indescribable, that it was through the power of God. He then spoke of Paul hearing and seeing Christ but that his associates did not, because it is only seen in the spirit. I was not fully satisfied with this explanation. It was more ‘spiritual’ than I had anticipated. Mr. Whitmer severed himself from the church in 1836 because he felt Joseph and the body of the people had departed from the first principles and had gone into banking and land speculating, etc. and was making new innovations. Joseph, about 1835, was especially enjoined by the Lord to keep out of things of the world and confine himself to the work of Christ and the Gospel. Latter-day Saints added to the Doctrine and Covenants by a committee of four appointed to Kirtland. He said the Book of Covenants was mostly to individuals and for them and not for the church. He doesn’t seem to doubt that Joseph might have had more than one wife, though Whitmer himself is much opposed to polygamy. The manuscript consists of 464 pages of closely written foolscap that will average about 37 lines to the page and 18 words to the line. The witnesses did not sign the original manuscript though they were present and ordered Oliver Cowdery to sign for them. The preservation the manuscript is remarkable considering that it came through so many hard and unprotected journeys. In the first edition there were 588 pages. David Whitmer is 5 feet 10 inches in height, is of fair complexions, long face, and rather of an intellectual cast. He lives in a somewhat small two story house. His doctrine is a holding fast to first principles. He firmly maintains the truth of his statement contained in the Book of Mormon.”
The statement that the three witnesses did not sign the manuscript but that Oliver Cowdery signed for them and at their request is doubtless true as to the copy which David Whitmer had. The writing itself indicates that. Joseph Fielding Smith, church historian, says his father said that in his interview and that of Orson Pratt, David Whitmer admitted that the three witnesses signed the original manuscript. It is also true that the name of the church was originally The Church of christ. Its present name was revealed in a revelation received in 1839. What he said about there being only one High Priest was a surprise. That, however, is the belief of many theologians, based chiefly, I think, on what Paul says in Hebrews, which does not apparently support them.
In conclusion, I emphasize the fact that the three special witnesses, so far as my research goes, and I have given it much attention, were men of substance and excellent character. Martin Harris was the owner of 520 acres of land, 150 acres of which he sold for $3,000 to pay for printing the Book of Mormon. That sum meant much more than it does now, and the sale was made over the serious protest of his wife. The sacrifice as too great. He was clearly a well-to-do farmer. His going to New York City to consult Professor Anthony, the noted Egyptologist, is clearly evidence of a thoughtful mind. The newspapers of the time referred to him as a respected citizen. Oliver Cowdery was the school teacher of the community, and after leaving the Church was elected, as stated, county attorney. He, of about the same age as Joseph Smith, was also an intelligent, respected citizen. I have said more about the Whitmer family, and so far as the other special witnesses are concerned, I do not recall the existence of any objection to the character of standing of either. A lawyer would not want a better lot of witnesses to prove his case. No lawyer has ever thought or will ever think he could make a favorable defense in court against the testimony of the 12 witnesses to the divinity of the Book of Mormon. They were substantial respected citizens, who never furthered their selfish interests out of their testimony of the divinity of the Book of Mormon. Why is it that a man could have witnessed the presence of an angel from Heaven, heard him declare the divinity of the Book of Mormon, know that Joseph Smith ws a Prophet of God, adhere to the first principles of the Gospel throughout a long life of alienation from the Church and so persist in going astray to the last? We are dual beings, the natural man and the spiritual. Paul was right, I repeat, when he said, “What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.” To me that offers some solution to this problem. The natural man, says Paul, “…receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. They are foolishness unto him and he cannot know them because they are spiritually discerned.” The Savior’s declaration on this question more than any other impresses me and never should be forgotten, namely, “I am the light of the world and he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life.”
I also repeat it matters not what knowledge we may have of the miraculous, or what we may have witnessed, even though it be angels seen and conversed with; we can lose the spirit of the Gospel and truth, walk in spiritual darkness and go astray, just as these men did. There is only one way to retain a knowledge of the divinity of this work, its truthfulness, and receive its blessings, and that is by obedience to the principles of the Gospel and retaining the companionship and guidance of the Holy Spirit, the “Light of Life”. I hear some say that they have never had a doubt about the divinity of this work. But with most men doubts will arise over the supernatural, and if that is encouraged, if a persona does not live in harmony with the spirit of this work, he will walk in darkness no matter what light he may have had, and that is the solution of this problem. I think the member of the Church who believes that he can live without partaking of the Lord’s sacrament worthily when it is available, as so many do, makes a most vital mistake. Our sacrament meetings are the least attended. Throughout the Israelitish period fo the Lord’s work the sacramental service was a most important religious one and that continued until the Savior came, and when He came that was ended, and the ordinance of the sacrament of the Lord’s supper substituted. It is a real indispensable lifeline to the retention of the spirit of light and truth. It is the one thing that if partaken of worthily, humbly and prayerfully, with devotion to the Lord, we will never lose the faith, no matter what the trials or temptations may be. I believe that the failure to so partake of the Sacrament was one of the contributary causes of so many leaving the Church in the Prophet’s time, and the lack of faith today. Brothers and sisters, this is the work of the Lord. May we so live as to not walk in spiritual darkness, but enjoy the “light of life” that will lead us to salvation and exaltation in the Kingdom of our Father in Heaven. Amen.
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