By Jack H. West, 1954.
Now, you remember, Joseph Smith had been told that when the translation was completed, the Angel Moroni would call for the golden records; approximately two thirds of the records were sealed and were to come forth at a later time, and the entire record was to be kept safe in the hands of God’s messengers to stand as a final witness before the entire world in the last days—to condemn those who had heard the story and who had every reason to believe that it was true, and still, deliberately and with full intent, knowingly, decided not to accept the gospel. The final evidence will be the records themselves. Now because the Angel had told Joseph this, many in the world have assumed that there were no golden records and therefore were never placed on public display.
You remember the endless and extreme trouble Joseph Smith had when he got the plates! He said it seemed that everyone within reach of him was divided into two groups: one, the group that didn’t believe he had the records, and so wanted to break into where he was supposed to be hiding them to prove that he didn’t have any gold plates. The other group, who did believe he had them wanted to break in and get them for the monetary value of the gold in them. So the Prophet said it seemed that everybody was against him, except a mere handful, comparatively speaking, who believed the story. Now God had said that he would set up special witnesses and a few others to testify that these records actually existed. And he did.
As I have said, in these mock trials, because of the preponderance of legal talent on the opposing side, a great advantage accrued to the prosecution. Many times, on a technicality, a case was quickly thrown out of court; many individuals had been able to think of something which, if there had been one prosecutor, some points may have passed him by, unobserved. As an example, the very first charge the prosecution made regarding the so-called fraudulent nature of the Book of Mormon was that it could not be shown, with evidence that would stand up in a court of law in this day and age, that there never were indeed such ancient golden records as the ones Joseph Smith described. You see, they thought that Joseph Smith was the only one who ever saw those records, and that he only “saw” them in the figment of his imagination. And they believed, confidently, that they could prove this in court. But, of course, they could not prove it, and they were shocked and amazed when I brought the testimony of twelve individuals, all honest, truthful men, well-thought of in their home areas—competent witnesses. They had been prime parties to the occurrences, and when their testimonies stood up, the prosecution was amazed and had no foundation in fact for their statement that the ancient records did not indeed exist in this day and age.
Oliver Cowdery’s witness helped establish the fact of the existence of the gold plates and the authenticity of the work. Then we released him as a witness.
We next called David Whitmer to the stand. David was the wealthy son of a very well-to-do farming family in the area where Joseph Smith lived. According to his testimony, he was born just a few months after Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Smith, in the year of 1806.
He testified that he was a very personal friend of Oliver Cowdery. When Oliver decided to go down into Pennsylvania from western New York State to meet the Prophet to see if he could tell from a personal visit whether he was honest or not, David asked Oliver to write him a letter, telling him what he thought of the Prophet.
“I got the letter all right from Oliver Cowdery,” David testified, “and it not only told me that he believed the Prophet to be a true Prophet, but he also asked me to come down there quickly because he couldn’t wait until I met him.”
David Whitmer was very well educated. His visit with the Prophet Joseph was the second time a very well educated young man, as to the saying and learning of men, had talked with the poor farmer boy who had never even approached the eighth grade in the learning of men. In a very short time David, too, became so convinced that Joseph was telling the truth that he was willing to drop everything and anything he had to follow this Prophet of God in this day and age. He lived to see the day when his family became members of the Church, very active members. As we follow his story from the beginning, as charted on page 10, he first met the Prophet Joseph Smith in 1829. For nine years David was very active in the Church. What did he testify to? His testimony was practically identical to that of Oliver Cowdery as to the angel in the woods, the bringing of the golden records, and his seeing these records as the leaves were turned before his eyes. Now note this: He, as did the other three special witnesses, testified that he not only saw the records, but he handled them with his own hands. So there could be no possible question of their actual physical existence in the day and age of about 1830.
What happened to David Whitmer after he was active for nine years? He also testified that in his later life it seemed as if the spirit of evil got into his heart. After he wrote a very insulting letter in which he signed himself President of the Church, and after four other charges were sustained against this man in a court of the church, he too was excommunicated, publicly humiliated, and cast aside.
Money matters usually cause dissension between so-called criminals. In crime we have found that every crime has to have a motive, and that some of the motives which are most potent are the desire for power, the desire for wealth, and the desire for fame. Power, wealth, and fame are the three basic and prime motivations for crime. We found almost ideal conditions existing among the twelve witnesses—the three special witnesses, the one key witness, and the eight other witnesses—for a betrayal of each other, if this claim of Joseph Smith had been a fraud. Had there been collusion between the Prophet and the witnesses, they of necessity, would have had to hold together. A disagreement on the part of any of them would have meant destruction of their entire fraud, if it had been such.
However, the bold action of the Prophet Joseph and of the Church when these men deviated is evidence that their work was not fraudulent. There was nothing to fear. And yet the arising dissentions gave every opportunity to expose the work as untrue. First, enmity came through the distributing of possible power on the part of Oliver Cowdery. With David Whitmer there could have been a monetary motive. When the law of consecration came into the Church, Joseph Smith want to David Whitmer, one of the wealthiest men in the Church, and asked him to be one of the first examples in deeding over to the Bishop of the Church, with a deed that could not be broken, all of his property, all of his wealth. David did not hesitate. That occurred within the nine years that he was very active in the Church. When he was excommunicated from the Church, he neither asked for not got one penny of that wealth back again.
With the development of such extreme circumstances, certainly Oliver Cowdery or David Whitmer would have exposed Joseph Smith if he had not been a true Prophet of God, and if the Book of Mormon had not been the work of God.
David Whitmer is the only one of the three special witnesses who died out of the Church. Yet, as we follow his life after having given his testimony, we find some peculiar things happening. In the very sunset of his life, as he terms it himself, he heard that somebody had said that he had denied his testimony as one of the witnesses to the Book of Mormon. Remember, he had signed that statement which Oliver Cowdery had also signed in the fore part of the Book of Mormon, as one of the special witnesses.
David became so concerned about this rumor that came to his attention, some man having said that he had denied his testimony, that he went to the greatest men in the state of Missouri—the governor of his state, the mayor of his town, the congressmen, the publishers of the two greatest newspapers of the state of Missouri, the presidents of the two largest banks of Missouri, justice of the peace, judges, and others—nineteen of them, and not one of them was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He said to these men, “Would you be willing to go under oath and testify to the world that you have known me long and intimately and that my word can be taken the same as my bonds?” And they said, “Why certainly we would be willing to do that, David.” Then they wanted to know what it was all about. And he said, “I’m not going to answer that question until I have an unqualified answer of yes or no from you gentlemen.” Well, their answer was yes, they would give such testimony. And then he said he sprung the trap. He said, “I am going to once and for all testify in print and have it published all around the earth, that I have never at any time denied my testimony as a witness to the Book of Mormon, and I am going to further testify that I have always adhered to that testimony. Then right under that, I want your sworn statement that I am honest and dependable.” And he said, “I thought sure some of these men would back out when I told them that, but they didn’t.”
The following is what David Whitmer caused to be published for the first time under date of March 25, 1881, over fifty years after he had testified to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. It appeared first in the Richmond, Ray County Conservator of Missouri. Notice how polite David Whitmer was is speaking of the man who had wrongly accused him.
Unto all Nations, tongues, and people unto whom these presents shall come: It having been represented by one Jacob Murphy of Palo, Caldwell County, Missouri, that I, in conversation with him last summer, denied my testimony as one of the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon; to the end thereof that he may understand me now if he did not then, and that the world may know the truth, I wish now, standing in the very sunset of life and in the fear of God, once for all to make this public statement: I have never at any time denied that testimony of any part thereof. I have always adhered to that testimony. I do again affirm the truth of all my statements as then made and published. It was no delusion. In the spirit of Christ I submit these statements unto the world, God being my judge as to the sincerity of my motives.
Signed and sealed: David Whitmer
Immediately following is this statement:
We, the undersigned citizens of Richmond, Ray Co., Mo., where David Whitmer Sr. has resided since the year 1838, certify that we have been long and intimately acquainted with him, and know him to be a man of highest integrity and of undoubted truth and veracity. Given at Richmond, Missouri this March 20th A.D. 1881.
Signed and sealed: A.W. Doniphan, George W. Dunn, (Judge of the Judicial circuit) — T.J. Woodson, (President of the Bay County Savings Bank.) J.T. Child, (Editor of the Conservatory.)
If I had time we would go on down the entire list of the other fifteen, the greatest men of the state of Missouri.
David Whitmer was not satisfied with having these statements printed in the Richmond, Ray County, papers, so he sent a certified reprint to the New York Times, and asked them to print it in the forepart of their newspaper. They did. Then he sent a reprint to the Great London Times. That paper, together with the New York Times, had world-wide circulation. And this declaration and statement was news!
Many captains who have piloted ships all over this world, came into New York Harbor and testified that they had been in many lands where the name of the great President of these United States, Abraham Lincoln, had never been heard, but they had never been in a land where the name of the Prophet Joseph Smith had not been heard and where people did not have some opinion one way or the other, either for or against his work. Anything that had to do with the Book of Mormon was news, and so these great newspapers gladly published this article. Just before he died, David asked the New York Times to print the story again, this time on the front page, and they did.
As David Whitmer was about to draw his last breath (the only member of the three special witnesses to die out of the Church) he still felt so keenly about his testimony he had given in regard to the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and the truthfulness of that book, that he brought his family around him, as Oliver Cowdery had done, and testified to them that he had never joined another church because he did not believe there was any other true church on the earth. His feelings, as nearly as we can tell, had been hurt. He was not as bitter toward the Prophet as Oliver had been at one period, but he never rejoined the Church. Yet, as he called these greatly loved ones around his bed, he said to them, “ I have never denied my testimony, and if in your hearing anyone says that I have denied my testimony, I want you to stand up for me since I won’t be here in person to do it, and you tell them that on my deathbed, in the fear of God, my maker, I testified to you to the last breath I drew on this earth that I had never denied my testimony regarding the coming forth of the Book of Mormon.”
Thus we conclude the witness of David Whitmer.
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