[14]. Letters of Edward Stevenson to Millennial Star, vol. 48, pp. 367-389.
[15]. Millennial Star, vol. 40, nos. 49, 50, report of Pratt and Smith, is signed by them and bears date of Sept. 17, 1878.
CHAPTER XVI.
DIRECT EXTERNAL EVIDENCES—THE THREE WITNESSES—SUBSEQUENT LIFE AND TESTIMONIES.
OLIVER COWDERY.
The Witnesses themselves always adhered to the truth of their testimony. They never denied what they in their now celebrated testimony so solemnly affirmed. It was reported at different times during their life time that they had denied their testimony, and such statements are to be found in the earlier editions of such standard works as the American Encyclopedia and in the Encyclopedia Britannica. It is evident that the reports about Oliver Cowdery denying his testimony obtained some credence even among the Saints at Nauvoo; for in the Times and Seasons, published by the Church at Nauvoo, one J. H. Johnson, in some verses written by him maintaining the fact that the truth stands fast though men may be untrue to it, says:
—Or prove that Christ was not the Lord
Because that Peter cursed and swore,
Or Book of Mormon not his word,
Because denied by Oliver.[[1]]
But notwithstanding all this, the fact remains that Oliver Cowdery never denied his testimony to the truth of the Book of Mormon. Whatever his delinquencies in other respects; whatever his grievances, real or imagined; in the Church, and even while out of it, he was true, to his honor be it said, to his testimony to the Book of Mormon. Living he affirmed it, and when dying he renewed the affirmation. It must be said of him that notwithstanding the high favors which God granted him—the favor of being one of these Three Special Witnesses, blessed to see the Nephite plates and the sacred things connected with them under such a remarkable display of God's presence and power; favored to receive with the Prophet the ministration of angels who ordained them both to the Aaronic and to the Melchizedek priesthood;[[2]] and favored afterwards to behold in open vision in the Kirtland Temple the Savior himself, and a number of angels who came on that occasion to restore to earth through these men the keys of authority and power which they held;[[3]] favored to be the Second Elder of the Church of Christ, and the first to make public proclamation of the restored gospel—notwithstanding all this, I repeat, it must be said of him that he possessed defects of character[[4]] which enabled the adversary of men's souls to so far prevail against him that he transgressed some of the laws of God and lost his high station. He was excommunicated from the Church for his sins,[[5]] and for a time stood as a stranger to the Saints, an outcast from Israel; but in those dark days he still remained true to his testimony.
In October, 1848, after an absence of about eleven years, Oliver Cowdery returned to the Church. At that time the movement of the Church to the Rocky Mountains was under way. A large number of the Saints were temporarily located at Kanesville (now Council Bluffs), Iowa, and on the 21st of October of the year above given, a special conference was called, presided over by Elder Orson Hyde, of the Council of the Apostles, in which the case of Oliver Cowdery was considered. Before that conference, at which some two thousand Saints were present,[[6]] Oliver Cowdery said: