es to them,
the performance of which I knew was not yet in the power of the Mormons.

In the meanwhile, I heard from Joe Smith himself how God had selected
him to obtain and be the keeper of the divine bible; and the reader will
form his own idea of Joe Smith by the narrative. The day appointed was
the 22nd of September, and Joe told me that on that day--

"He arose early in the morning, took a one-horse waggon of some one that
had staid overnight at his house, and, accompanied by his wife, repaired
to the hill which contained the book. He left his wife in the waggon by
the road, and went alone to the hill, a distance of thirty or forty
rods. He then took the book out of the ground, hid it in a tree top,
and returned home. The next day he went to work for some time in the
town of Macedon, but about ten days afterwards, it having been suggested
that some one had got his book, his wife gave him notice of it; upon
which, hiring a horse, he returned home in the afternoon, staid just
time enough to drink a cup of tea went in search of his book, found it
safe, took off his frock, wrapt it round his treasure, put it under his
arm, and ran all the way home, a distance of about two miles. He said
he should think that, being written on plates of gold, it weighed sixty
pounds, but, at all events, was sure it was not less than forty. On his
return he was attacked by two men in the woods, knocked them both down,
made his escape, and arrived safe at home with his burden."

The above were the exact words of Smith, to which he adds, somewhere in
his translation of the book, that had it not been for the supernatural
virtues of the stone he carried with him, virtues which endowed him with
divine strength and courage, he would never have been able to undergo
the fatigues and conquer the obstacles he encountered during that
frightful night.

Thus Smith gets possession of his precious manuscript. But, alas 'tis
written in Egyptian hieroglyphics. Joe calls to his assistance the
wonderful stone, "the gift of God," and peeping hastily through it, he
sees an angel pointing somewhere towards _a miraculous pair of
spectacles_!!! Yes, two polished pieces of crystal were the humble
means by which the golden plates were to be rendered comprehensible. By
the bye, the said spectacles are a heavy, ugly piece of workmanship of
the last century; they are silver-mounted, and bear the maker's name,
plainly engraved, "Schneider, Zurich."

The