“God will provide, my son,” said the confidential mother. “Go, promise part cash and part trade,” which was done, and the same day Mrs. Wells, of Macedon, gave Joseph work at digging a well, promising cash for the work. The mother reminded the son of the Lord’s providence, so soon fulfilled.
While Joseph was working for Mrs. Wells, to supply their daily wants and to pay for the chest in which the plates were to be secured, a mob of twelve men, headed by Mr. Willard Chase, a Methodist class leader, and a certain conjurer whose special business was to divine the hiding place of the gold plates, were heard to say:
“We will have that gold Bible in spite of all the devils in hell.”
Father Smith, knowing that the plates were secreted away from home, felt deep anxiety concerning their safety, and he induced Emma, the Prophet’s wife, who was living with the family, to go on horseback to give warning to Joseph of the intentions of the mob. From an impression Joseph had, he looked with the Urim and Thummim, which he had with him, after which, meeting his wife with a smile, he informed her that the plans of the mob would prove futile; that the plates were safe. However, he returned home with his wife, and in the evening, after procuring the chest, Joseph started for the plates, but as he was returning home with them, he was waylaid and attacked three times, but he finally escaped, although bruised and weary, bringing the plates home in safety.
This was one of his first lessons and a fulfillment of the angel’s words to him.
Not long after this first experience, the Prophet was warned of a second attempt to rob him of the treasure.
On this occasion he remembered the angel’s charge in regard to using every precaution, and the promise that if he was prayerful and careful he should not lose them. A stone of the old-fashioned hearth was removed and the plates and the breast-plate were concealed in a cavity under the hearth. The stone had just been replaced, when a large armed mob came rushing uproariously around the house. The door was thrown open and were in the house, Joseph at their head, rushed out, when the mob fled without their booty. A third attempt to obtain the plates was also unsuccessfully made. This time the treasures were hid in some flax in the loft of a cooper shop, and an empty box was hidden under the floor. It was said that a young woman, aided by a peepstone, pointed out the cooper shop as the repository of the “Gold Bible.” During the night the place was rummaged, the floor torn up and the box broken to pieces. This was another experience, but the treasures were still safely preserved. It was manifested to the Prophet that a facsimile of characters must be copied [p.29] and sent to the most learned professors of the country, and that Martin Harris should be the bearer of them. Before the Prophet could accomplish this desired object, however, he was compelled to seek peace in Pennsylvania, for the whole country around seemed determined to give Joseph no peace whatever. While the servant of God was on his way from his father’s house, to seek a peaceful retreat, he was stopped on the highway twice by a mob of fifty men, but as the necessary precaution had been observed by hiding the plates in a barrel of beans, again they were preserved.
The trying scenes which this young man had to pass through, having been compelled to leave his home and country by reason of the persecutions heaped upon him in his young married life, were of a heart-rending character, besides the labor of translating the Book of Mormon, and organizing the Church, which he was instructed to do. It became all the more difficult to perform this great work because new revelation came so much in contact with the traditions of the different religious sects of the day, each one differing from the other, yet each one claiming to be the right Church. Just imagine this unlearned youth, possessing no funds only as he earned them by his daily labor, under these circumstances, with increasing responsibilities of family, and home. Without God’s aid it would border on insanity to entertain a faint hope of success in so stupendous an undertaking. Had it not been that the Lord had promised to help him, his heart would have failed him by the way. But there was encouragement found in the words of the prophet Isaiah, 29th chapter, where the prophet, speaking of the very time and condition surrounding the youth, used these words:
“Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder; for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish ... They also that erred in spirit shall come to understanding, and they that murmured shall learn doctrine.” (Isaiah 29:14, 24)
Tens of thousands have proven those words to be true. I was personally favored with many conversations with the three witnesses whom God raised up, one of whom was Martin Harris, a near neighbor of Joseph Smith. In 1871, while I was emigrating Martin Harris from Kirkland, Ohio, during our journey of over 2,000 miles, he related many little incidents which occurred in those early times.