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.
