By Jack H. West, 1954.
Then I called Oliver Cowdery to the stand. Oliver was short and dark and in many physical ways, the diametrical opposite of Joseph Smith, who was tall and strapping and rather blond. But Oliver was also different in another way. Where Joseph Smith had only been to school a few days of a few years of his life, never even approaching the eighth grade, Oliver testified that he had been very well educated. He was a school teacher in the area of Joseph Smith’s home when he first heard of the “Joe Smith” story of his “Gold Bible”, as it was known then.
Oliver Cowdery testified that he was born in the year of 1805, the same year as the Prophet. As a young man he went to live with the Smith family, as it was the custom for the teachers of local schools to go board and room with local families. Teachers must not have been paid very well, because when this fellow went to meet the Prophet Joseph Smith, who had gone down into Pennsylvania, he had to walk most of the way.
How did this young, well-educated individual testify? He said that when he heard the story of Joseph Smith and his “Golden Bible” coming from the lips of Joseph’s own parents, he said to himself, “Surely these people believe this story.” In spite of all the derogatory things that he had heard in the neighborhood, he testified, “I was deeply impressed to go meet the Prophet. I had always prided myself in the ability to make rapid decisions upon meeting people as to what type of people they were and whether or not they were honest and trustworthy. I felt sure that if I could meet the Prophet Joseph Smith and talk to him for a short time, I could tell whether he was telling the truth or not.”
At his first opportunity, Oliver took a short leave of absence, walked, as I said, most of the way to Pennsylvania to meet the Prophet Joseph Smith, and a strange thing happened. He had been talking with this uneducated farmer boy – uneducated as to the things of men but keenly educated as to the things of God – for only a very few minutes, and the testimony came to him that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that he was telling the truth. And so Oliver said to the Prophet, after a very short conversation, “Joseph, I am going to resign my position and come down to help you in translation of the Book of Mormon.” Two days after he met the Prophet, Oliver actually started as scribe in the translation of the plates.
Now the uneducated boy (after the things of men) had completely convinced the educated young man, and the prosecution made note of this. They found it had happened in other cases. Later they told us that Joseph Smith had these men under a spell of some kind, that he must have had a dynamic personality and was able to influence these men beyond all realms of reason.
That was not the reason, as we will see later in the testimony. The reason was that Joseph was telling the truth! Oliver said that nobody could hear Joseph give his testimony and see the truth shining from his eyes without being swayed as to its truthfulness. He further testified, “I watched time and time again as Joseph went in before judges and justices of the peace and juries, in some cases known to be antagonistic toward the Prophet and his work.” Remember, this was a young man speaking who later became one of the most renowned attorneys in the midwest. And he said, “I have watched it happened time and time again. When they heard the story from the lips of the Prophet himself, they believed the story and turned him loose. No charge they could place against him would hold up.” Oliver testified regarding some of these cases, the same as the Prophet did. Regardless of what the trumped up charge was to begin with (any excuse to get the Prophet and others into court who had part in bringing forth the Book of Mormon), sooner or later the examining and the cross-examining evaded the original charge and came around to whether or not the accused were parties to a fraud in bringing forth the Book of Mormon. The prosecution and the courts could not place evidence against them that would stand up in a court of law, for there was no evidence against them.
Let us follow the life of this young man, Oliver Cowdery. You see on the chart (page 10) from 1829, the year he first met the Prophet and for nine years thereafter, he was very active in the Church and was with the Prophet on several occasions when supernatural things occurred. Then in the year 1838, he told us in later testimony, the spirit of Satan himself seemed to get into his heart, and after seven out of nine charges were sustained against him in a court of the Church, he was excommunicated, publicly humiliated and cast aside. For ten years he remained out of the Church, some of this time very bitter towards Joseph Smith personally. Yet he had testified during the nine years that he worked very closely with the Prophet in the bringing forth of the Book of Mormon and the organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they became closer then blood brothers. He said, “Why we were as close as two peas in a pod. How dared Joseph Smith antagonize, publicly humiliate and cast aside his closest worker in crime, if such be? If this be fraud, then these men are criminals and if they are fraudulent criminals, they deserve the worst penalty that man can devise or God can devise, for hundreds of thousands of people have left their homes and all that they hold near and dear and followed the teachings of these men. Many of these people have given their very lives; some, out on the plains going West; some, coming across the waters from the old countries, some, in the lands of their birth in foreign countries; others, after they came into the Church fold. And they gladly gave their lives, if need be, to the cause, because so great was their faith in the teachings of these men. And yet they tell me they are criminals, that they are fraudulent men. And I say, ‘How dare the arch criminal, if such he were, antagonize his closest worker in this work?’ “
But when Joseph met with a request to acquiesce in the excommunication of Oliver Cowdery, he didn’t hesitate for a second. He said,
“If Oliver, of all people, can’t live the teachings of the gospel in their fullness, surely we should excommunicate him.” And he did not hesitate.
When Oliver Cowdery saw the terrible things that went on in the names of legal practice after the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother, he could desist no longer. Finally he wrote a letter to the high council of the Church, pleading with them to let him go, at his own expense, back to the President of these United States and plead the case for Joseph Smith and bring the murderers to trial in a trial that was just and fair.
At the “legal” proceedings of the so-called trial of the murderers of the Prophet Joseph and Hyrum Smith, the murderers stood indicted before the grand jury. Then the jury which had been agreed upon by both the prosecution and the defense—the twelve men “good and true”—was disbanded upon the motion of the very indicted men, and one lone man was put in its place—not even a judge. The one man was later shown to be a member of the very mob which murdered Joseph Smith.
When Oliver Cowdery, by now a brilliant lawyer, realized the fraudulencies going on in the name of law, he said, “I couldn’t stand it any longer.” So he asked for permission to go back and present the case before the President of these United States, even though he was an excommunicated individual so far as the Church was concerned.
Recent Comments