Page:The Rocky Mountain Saints.djvu/55

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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

↑ 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.

[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.

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