Arrived at the home of his brother, at Fairplay, he found him, before an infidel, now a devoted Christian and substantially as the history of the rise of the Church was related to him we shall repeat it here:
"In a little town six hundred miles to the east, in the State of New York, a young man named Joseph Smith, while praying in the woods twelve years ago, received a visit from God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. Three years later, an angel, calling himself Moroni, appeared to this youth and explained that he was a resurrected being who had formerly lived on this continent in the flesh. Telling the boy Joseph of a sacred record hidden in a hill near by, the angel met him on the hillside where the precious charge lay concealed in a stone box, and after repeated admonitions during the four subsequent years, delivered to him some gold plates and an instrument called a Urim and Thummim, with which to translate the inspired hieroglyphics.
"After much delay and a great deal of persecution, the youth succeeded in reproducing from the gold plates the record known as the Book of Mormon, now published to the world these three years.
"Two years and two months ago, having received authority under the hands of John the Baptist, as also from Peter, James and John, the ancient apostles, this modern Prophet, in accordance with directions from the Lord, organized the true Church of Christ, at Fayette, Seneca County, in the State of New York.
"The next fall after the Church was set up, three missionaries came west with the intention of introducing the work among the Indians, who are descended from an ancient people of whom the Book of Mormon gives the history; and on their way came among an earnest body of worshippers at Kirtland, Ohio. These read the book, believed the testimony, and received baptism to the number of several hundred souls.
"Receiving a visit from a number of these converts, the Prophet himself has removed with his family to Kirtland, where he now lives with a number of his followers.
"It has, moreover, been revealed to the Prophet that the ancient site of the Garden of Eden is on this continent, and that the building of the New Jerusalem is to commence at that sacred spot. Accordingly, the converts to the new faith are gathering from all directions into Independence, Missouri, where about four hundred of them are now settled."
Interesting as this narrative is to us, though we have heard it for the hundredth time, how much more interesting must it have been to David W. Patten, for it was all new to him. Drinking it in with his whole soul, he received the truth with joy, and was led into the waters of baptism on the 15th day of June, 1832.
With the most of men there is lingering in the very heart of their faith a grain of doubt. Even the missionary, no doubt, feels easier in placing himself in the hands of the Lord, when he knows that if no place is furnished him to sleep, he can with the dollar in his pocket provide for himself. And so it is with each of us at times. It seems as though we cannot free ourselves from the millstone of doubt, and take the Lord at His word when He says He will provide for those who trust Him. This was not the case, however, with David W. Patten. He stood six feet and one inch in height, and weighed over two hundred pounds; but there seems to have been no room in his whole generous composition for a particle of doubt. He took the Lord at His word and devoted his whole life to His service; and whether face to face with Cain, or baring his breast to an infuriated mob, a doubt that the Lord was with him seems thenceforth never to have entered his mind.
Two days after his baptism David was ordained an Elder under the hands of Elisha H. Groves, and with Joseph Wood, another recent convert, as a companion, was given a mission to the Territory of Michigan.