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Show of devils nor the malice of men shall ever cause him to fall by the hand of his enemies until he has seen Christ in the flesh at his final coming, as ltttls short of a piece of blasphemy; and it may be classed with that revelation that some among you will remember which sent Bro. Page and me so unwisely to (3) Toronto with a prediction from the Lord by Urim and Thummim that we would there find a man anxious to buy the First El der's copyright. I well remember we did not find him, and had to return surprised and disappointed. But so great was my faith, that, in going to Toronto, nothing but calmness pervaded my soul, every doubt was banished, and I as much expected that Bro. Page and I would And you fulfill the revelation as that we should live. may believe, without asking me to relate the particulars that it would be no easy task to describe our desokrtion and grief. actual assassination of apostates from the church, which was done in June last and was only one of many wrong rage steps. These are facts which I am reheorsincr, and if they shall be called in question, I am able to establish them by evidence which I can bring forward in abundance. I crt all. Bro. Page and I did not think that God would have deceived us through "Urim and Thummim," 'excrctly as came the Book of Mormon; and I well remember how hard I strove to drive away the foreboding which seized me, that the First Elder had made tools of us, where we thought, in the simplicity of our hearts, that we were di vinely commanded. And what served to render the reflection past ex pression in its bitterness to me, was, that from his hand I received baptism, by the direction of the Angel of God whose voice, as it has since struck me, did most mys teriously resemble the voice of Elder Sidney Rigdon, who, I am sure had no part in the transactions of that day, as the Angel was John the Baptist, which I doubt When I afterward first heard Elder not and deny not. Rigdon, whose voice is so strikingly similar, I felt that this "dear" brother was to be in some sense, to me un known, the herald of this church as the Great Baptist was of Christ. 4. I never dreamed however, that he would influence the Prophet, Seer and Revelator to the Church of the Lat ter Day Saints, into the formation of a secret band at For West, committed to depredations upon Gentiles and tho Stilt although favored of God as a chosen witness; testimony to the divine authority of the Book of Mormon, and honored of the Lord in being permitted, without money and without price, to serve as scribe dur ing the translation of the Book of Mormon, I have some times had seasons of skepticism, in which I did seriously wonder whether the Prophet and I were men in our sober senses when he would be translating from plates through "the Urim and Thummim" and the plates not be in sight to bear But I believed both in the Seer and in the "Seer Stone," and what the First Elder announced as revela tion from God, I accepted as such, and committed to paper with a glad mind and happy heart and swift pen' for I beHeved him to be the soul of honor and truth, young I man who would die before he would lie. Man may deceive his fellow man, deception may follow deception, and the children of the wicked one may seduce the unstable, untaught in the ways of right eousness and peace, for I felt a solemn awe about me being deep in the faith, that the First Elder was a See; and Prophet of God, giving the truth unsullied through "Urim and Thummim," dictated by the will of the Lord, and that he was persecuted for the sake of the truth which he loved. Could I have been deceived in him? I could rehearse a number of things to show either that I was then deceived, or that he has since fallen from the lofty place in which fond affection had deemed him secure. I remembered his experience as he had related it lacking wisdom, 1 went to God in prayer. ;,-r--{ how dark I send: O! is! Let to n:o, Lord, everything thy glory |
