MARTIN HARRIS. 47

wrest them from him. But almighty power and wis- dom prevailed, and the sacred rehcs were safely kept till the day the messenger called for them, when they were delivered into his hands, Joseph meanwhile hav- ing accomplished by them all that was required of him.

And now so fierce becomes the fiery malevolence of the enemy that Joseph is obliged to fly." He is very poor, having absolutely nothing, until a farmer named Martin Harris has pity on him and gives him fifty dollars, ^° with which he is enabled to go with his wife to her old home in Pennsylvania.^^ Immediately after his arrival there in December, he begins copying the

' ' Soon the news of his discoveries spread abroad throughout all those parts. . .The house was frequently beset by mobs and evil-designiug persons. Several times he was shot at, and very narrowly escaped. Every device was used to get the plates away from him. And being continually in danger of liis life from a gang of abandoned wretches, he at length concluded to leave the place, and go to Pennsylvania; and accordingly packed up his goods, jnitting the plates into a barrel of beans, and proceeded upon his jouniey. He had not gone far before he was overtaken by an officer with a search-war- rant, who flattered himself with tlu; idea that he should surely obtain the plates; after seai'ching very diligently, he was sadly disappointed at not find- ing them. Mr Smith then drove on, but before he got to his journey's end he was again overtaken by an ofiicer on the same business, and after ransack- ing the wagon very carefully, he went his way as much chagrined as the first at not being able to discover the object of his research. Without any fur- ther molestation, he pursued his journey until he came to the northern part of Pennsylvania, near the Susquehanna River, in which part his father-in- law resided.' Pratt's Visions, 15.

'" ' In the neighborhood (of Smith's old home) there lived a farmer possessed of some money and more credulity. Every wind of doctrine aff'ected him. He had been in turn a quaker, a Wesleyan, a baptist, a presbyterian. His heterogeneous and unsettled views admirably qualified him for discipleship where novelty was paramount, and concrete things were invested with the enchantment of mystery. He was enraptured with the young prophet, and offered him fifty dollars to aid in the publication of his new bible.' Taylder's Mormons, xxviii.-ix.

•' 'Soon after Smith's arri%^al at Harmony, Isaac Hale (Smith's father-in- law) heard he had brought a wonderful box of plates with him. Hale "was shown a box in which it is said they were contained, which had to all ap- pearances been used as a glass box of the common window-glass. I was allowed to feel the weight of the box, and they gave me to understand that the book of plates was then in the box— into which, however, I was not al- lowed to look. I inquired of Joseph Smith, Jr., who was to be the first who would be allowed to see the book of plates. He said it was a young child. After this I became dissatisfied, and informed him that if thei-e was any- thing in my house of that description, which I could not be allowed to see, he nmsftakc it away; if he did not, I was determined to see it. After that the plates were said to be hid in the woods.'" Hoice's Mormonism Vnveiled, 2G4.