By Jack H. West, 1954.
Next we called Martin Harris to the stand. You remember Martin Harris was the one in the forest who said to Joseph Smith and the other witnesses, “I’m sorry, Joseph, but I’m the reason you aren’t receiving an answer to your prayer; I just do not have faith enough,” and he asked for the privilege of withdrawing to another part of the forest. Then he withdrew to an area of the forest a little distance from the other and knelt down and prayed with all of his heart that he could gain enough faith. He did not want to doubt. He said, “I heard a noise behind me, and I turned around and saw the Prophet Joseph Smith coming toward me. I only had to take one look and I knew positively that he had received a marvelous testimony in answer to their prayer. He told me the story of the angel that came to show the other witnesses the golden plates and then he said that he felt as though a great load had been lifted from his shoulders, for now others had seen and had heard.”
Martin pleaded with Joseph to join him that he too might be blessed with a vision of the plates. Joseph readily consented, and before they had prayed very long, the same vision burst upon their presence, and they beheld the same messenger that had appeared to Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer. The angel again turned the leaves one by one, and a similar scene was enacted.
Martin Harris was overjoyed and cried out: “ ‘Tis enough; ‘tis enough; mine eyes have beheld; mine eyes have beheld!”
Now the Prophet did not have the load on his own shoulders entirely, for Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and Martin Harris had seen, and they knew that there was such things as angels in the latter day and age. They knew that the golden records existed.*
Martin Harris further testified that he was born in the year 1783, thus being about twenty-two years older than the other witnesses we have discussed. He was a farmer, a very, very thorough farmer. He was not wealthy, but neither was he poor. He was well esteemed in his area, a very fine neighbor, but he was cautious. He did not jump into things. But he said, “When I heard Joseph Smith tell that story of the first and second great visions, there could be no question in my mind. I knew that he had seen and had heard what he said he saw and heard. As cautious as I was, I knew this.” His testimony continued, “I met the Prophet two years before the other witnesses, in 1827; and when I went to mortgage the farm to help in the publication of the Book of Mormon, I lost my happy home over it.” His wife must have said to him, “Well, you old fool, if you want to mortgage your half of the farm to help print that fictitious book, that’s all right with me, but you aren’t going to mortgage my half of the farm.” She divorced him, and Martin Harris mortgaged his half of the farm for $3,000 to pay for the publication of the first five thousand copies of the Book of Mormon.
Now some of the other leaders in other churches who had been shouting “Blasphemy” at all the claims of the Prophet, now stood up in their majesty behind their pulpits, “We testify, in the name of Jesus Christ, that it yet will become known how foolish Martin Harris was to mortgage his farm for $3,000 to pay for the first five thousand copies of the Book of Mormon, when those copies lie on the shelf gathering dust and rot away for lack of sales.”
You know that one of the tests of a prophet is that his prophecies shall come true. Those people were not prophets, were they? The first five thousand copies did sell, and some fifty five English editions have sold since then, each one greater in number than the one before. Martin had said time and time again that what appeared to be doubt on his part was not really doubt; he was simply trying to get more help to persuade others. He insisted on getting the translation of the first 116 page of the Book of Mormon. He wanted to take the translated pages home to prove to his wife that the book was not founded on the spirit of Satan but that it was indeed founded on the spirit of Jesus Christ. Well, those 116 pages were lost and there was quite an ado about it in the early history of the Church.
It was also Martin Harris who took certain transcripts of the ancient hieroglyphics, together with the interpretation that Joseph Smith had give, to New York to the greatest Egyptologist or master of ancient languages in that day, Professor Charles Anthon of Columbia University. Having presented this information, Martin testified that he got a certificate from the professor stating that not only were the characters Egyptian in type but also that the translation was the most nearly perfect of any translation of ancient Egyptian he had seen. As Martin Harris went to leave, having this certification in his pocket, the professor asked him where the record came from. He testified that an angel of God had come down from heaven and shown where the records were hidden. The professor, according to the testimony of Martin Harris, asked for the certificate he had written. When it was returned to him, he tore it into shreads, saying that there was no such thing now as ministering angels. (He had not read Revelations 14:6-7 very carefully, had he?)
Later in a meeting of scientists, Professor Anthon verified the he had given Martin Harris a certificate regarding the translations of the ancient script. Then he explained that he had torn it up when he found that the gold plates had been brought by angels, and he smirked and said to the other scientists, “Any of us knows that there are no angles in this day and age.”
After his experience in New York, Martin Harris took the copy of the characters and the translation of them to Dr. Mitchell, another expert in languages of the ancient people, and he got a verification of the same thing that Professor Anthon had told him regarding the correctness and actuality of the characters and the interpretation.
Now what happened to Martin Harris after ten years of activity in the Church? The Church moved west. He said to the people around him; “I never did leave the Church. The Church left me.” Geographically speaking, that was true, for when the Church moved west, he told the brethren that he was getting kind of old and suggested that they go ahead and get things set and he would follow later. He had good intentions, but for thirty three long years this man was a tiny island of belief in a whole sea of unbelief around him. His neighbors testified in writing and under oath that Martin Harris was just as honest as the day is long and that he was one of the finest neighbors any one could have. They thought, however, that there was just one subject on which he was ‘jest a little tetched’ — “He still continues to maintain that he saw an angel of God and the golden records from which he claims Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon. And he testifies that God himself spoke from the heavens to him and told him that the translation was authentic and divine.
In the sunset of this man’s life some of the Saints in the Rocky Mountains raised a fund and sent it to him, and he went out to the West. There, hundreds and thousands of people heard his sweet testimony regarding his part in bringing forth the Book of Mormon and relating to the actuality of the existence of the ancient Golden Records.
And a third time it happened – three out of three! As he was about to go meet his Maker and was drawing his last breath on this earth, he called those near and dear to him around his death bed, and he died with a testimony of the Book of Mormon on his lips.
Thus all of the “Three Witnesses” avowed the truth of the Book of Mormon in their dying breaths. And therefore, we conclude the testimony of Marin Harris.
*Some people out of the Church have said, “Do you mean to say that Oliver Cowdery was a scribe for the greatest part of the translation of the Book of Mormon, and yet had never seen the golden records?” We answer that a positive, “Yes. We mean that, exactly.” Oliver testified that when the Prophet was translating he would always sit in another room, and his words would come through the door or over a screen separating the scribe from the translator. Oliver never saw those records until he saw them in the miraculous episode in the forest.
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