David Whitmer, in an account of this process written in his later years, said:—
"Joseph would put the seer stone into a hat [more testimony against the use of the spectacles] and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the translation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to O. Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to brother Joseph to see if it were correct, then it would disappear and another character with the interpretation would appear."*
* "Address to Believers in the Book of Mormon."
But to Joseph the matter of reproducing the lost pages of the translation did not seem simple. When Harris's return to Pennsylvania was delayed, Joe became anxious and went to Palmyra to learn what delayed him, and there he heard of Mrs. Harris's theft of the pages. His mother reports him as saying in announcing it, "my God, all is lost! all is lost!" Why the situation was as serious to a sham translator as it would have been simple to an honest one is easily understood. Whenever Smith offered a second translation of the missing pages which differed from the first, a comparison of them with the latter would furnish proof positive of the fraudulent character of his pretensions.
All the partners in the business had to share in the punishment for what had occurred. The Smiths lost all faith in Harris. Joe says that Harris broke his pledge about showing the translation only to five persons, and Mother Smith says that because of this offence "a dense fog spread itself over his fields and blighted his wheat." When Joe returned to Pennsylvania an angel appeared to him, his mother says, and ordered him to give up the Urim and Thummim, promising, however, to restore them if he was humble and penitent, and "if so, it will be on the 22d of September."* Here may be noted one of those failures of mother and son to agree in their narratives which was excuse enough for Brigham Young to try to suppress the mother's book. Joe mentions a "revelation" dated July, 1828 (Sec. 3, "Doctrine and Covenants"), in which Harris was called "a wicked man," and which told Smith that he had lost his privileges for a season, and he adds, "After I had obtained the above revelation, both the plates and the Urim and Thummim were taken from me again, BUT IN A FEW DAYS they were returned to me."**
* "Biographical Sketches," by Lucy Smith, p. 125.
** Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, p. 8.
For some ten months after this the work of translation was discontinued, although Mother Smith says that when she and his father visited the prophet in Pennsylvania two months after his return, the first thing they saw was "a red morocco trunk lying on Emma's bureau which, Joseph shortly informed me, contained the Urim and Thummim and the plates." Mrs. Harris's act had evidently thrown the whole machinery of translation out of gear, and Joe had to await instructions from his human adviser before a plan of procedure could be announced. During this period (in which Joe says he worked on his father's farm), says Tucker, "the stranger [supposed to be Rigdon] had again been at Smith's, and the prophet had been away from home, maybe to repay the former's visits."*
* "Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism," p. 48.
Two matters were decided on in these consultations, viz., that no attempt would be made to retranslate the lost pages, and that a second copy of all the rest of the manuscript should be prepared, to guard against a similar perplexity in case of the loss of later pages. The proof of the latter statement I find in the fact that a second copy did exist. Ebenezer Robinson, who was a leading man in the church from the time of its establishment in Ohio until Smith's death, says in his recollections that, when the people assembled on October 2, 1841, to lay the corner-stone of Nauvoo House, Smith said he had a document to put into the corner-stone, and Robinson went with him to his house to procure it. Robinson's story proceeds as follows:—