David Whitmer

“ The day following David Whitmer's arrival at Harmony the plates were packed up and delivered into the care of the Angel Moroni, that they might be safely conveyed to Fayette. "When I was returning to Fayette," says David Whitmer, "with Joseph and Oliver, all of us riding in the wagon, Oliver and I on an old fashioned, wooden spring-seat, and Joseph behind us, when traveling along in a clear, open place, a very pleasant, nice looking old man suddenly appeared by the side of our wagon and saluted us with, 'Good morning ”

“ Whitmer and his family are thoroughly imbued with the idea that the manuscript is under the immediate protection of the Almighty."
"Are there any relations of Oliver Cowdery now living in this vicinity?
"Yes, his daughter, Mrs. Dr. Chas. Johnson, now resides in town."
The reporter copied the following certificate of the standing of Mr. Whitmer in the community, among his papers, and obtained his permission to use it. It shows the character of the man, and adds to the value of his statement given above.
We, the undersigned citizens of Richmond, Ray county, Mo, where David Whitmer, sr. ”

“ Having resided here for near a half of a century, it is with no little pride that he points to his past record with the consciousness that he has done nothing derogatory to his character as a citizen and believer in the son of Mary, to warrant such an attack on him, come from what source it may, and now with the lilies of seventy-five winters crowning him like an aureole, and his pilgrimage on earth well nigh ended, he reiterates his former statements, and will leave futurity to solve the problem that he was but a passing witness to its fulfillment. ”

“ And now if there be fault, it be the mistake of men; wherefore condemn not the things of God, that ye may be found spotless at the judgment seat of Christ.
Translated from the golden plates by Joseph Smith, jr., Palmyra, N. Y., 1830. Printed by E. B. Grandin for the author.
The translator of the book is said to have been witnessed by eleven persons, as follows: Martin Harris, David Whitmer, Oliver Cowdery, Christian Whitmer, Hiram Page, Jacob Whitmer, Joseph Smith, sr., Peter Whitmer, jr., John Whitmer, Hyrum Smith, and Samuel H. Smith, all of whom except David Whitmer are long since dead. ”

“ He Describes the Translation of the Golden Tablets at Which He Assisted.
The Angel in the Pasture—His Hatred of Polygamy—His Services in the Church.
RICHMOND, MO., Dec. 15.— [Special Correspondence.] David Whitmer, one of the founders of the Mormon Church, and a resident of this quaint and interesting village for almost a half a century, lies at the point of death. At the family homestead are gathered the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of the dying patriarch, and beside the deathbed is the devoted woman who linked her life and fortune with his more than forty years ago. ”

“ I regret that the editors of the Herald have resorted to this and other questionable means to cry me down, but TRUTH will stand, even if contended for by an aged man soon to meet his God; for God is the author of truth.
You have left out the date as to when these things were written about John Whitmer, W.W. Phelps and myself to the Millennial Star. I will venture to say that they were written to that paper by someone in Nauvoo, just prior to the exodus to Salt Lake. ”

“ Petty Persecution.—During their sojourn in the little Pennsylvania village, Joseph and Oliver suffered considerable annoyance at the hands of mischievous persons who, having no faith in their work and regarding it as a hoax, seemed bent upon rendering their situation as disagreeable as possible. Learning of their unpleasant situation, and desiring to help along the sacred task to which they were devoting themselves, Peter Whitmer, Sr., a farmer living at Fayette, Seneca County, New York, sent his son David with a team and wagon to bring them to the Whitmer home. ”

“ After that memorable event, in which Smith was taken prisoner, David returned to Richmond, and has always asserted that Joseph Smith, was called and commanded by God to translate the Book of Mormon, and that Smith, as he knew him, was a righteous, God-fearing man. Mr. Whitmer today clings to the religious belief of his early manhood and has never sanctioned polygamy, which he considers one of the greatest abominations of the earth. ”

“ After the plates had been translated, which process required about six months, the same heavenly visitant appeared and reclaimed the gold tablets of the ancient people informing Smith, that he would replace them with other records of the lost tribes that had been brought with them during their wanderings in Asia, which would be forthcoming when the world was ready to receive them. At that time Mr. Whitmer saw the tablet, gazed with awe upon the celestial messenger, heard him speak and say: "Blessed is the Lord and he that keeps his commandments;" ”

“ Upright in his dealings with men and just toward all, he has progressed gradually with the country until he and his children have secured good business standing and are regarded among the best citizens of Ray County.
Of those who took part in the original translation, Joseph Smith, was shot by a mob in 1844; Oliver Cowdery died in this county thirty years ago, leaving a wife and daughter, both of whom are yet living and reside in Silver City, MO. John Whitmer, a prosperous farmer, died at Far West in 1878, leaving children and grandchildren. ”

“ In the year 1830 I was married to Miss Julia A. Jolly who is still living. The fruit of our union was a son, David J. Whitmer, now aged forty-eight, and a daughter, now aged 46 years, both of whom are now living with me. "I first heard of what is now termed Mormonism in the year 1828. I made a business trip to Palmyra, New York, and while there stopped with one Oliver Cowdery. A great many people in the neighborhood were talking about the finding of certain golden plates by one Joseph Smith, Jr., a young man of the neighborhood. ”

“ The inspired writers did not try to hide the polygamy of David and Solomon. Their transgressions do not make the Psalms and Proverbs untrue, neither do the errors of Joseph make the Book of Mormon untrue. God does not want any one in the church whose faith is so weak that he stumbles because of the transgressions of any man or men. Our faith and trust must be in God, and not in any man! ”

“ O ye Gentiles, have ye remembered the Jews, mine ancient covenant people? Nay; but ye have cursed them, and have hated them, and have not sought to recover them. But behold, I will return all these things your own heads; for I, the Lord, hath not forgotten my people. Thou fool, that shall say, a Bible, we have got a Bible, and we need no more Bible. Have ye obtained a Bible, save it were by the Jews? Know ye not that there are more nations than one? ”

“ This matter of a one-man mouthpiece of God to the church, has proven the great curse of the work of God in these last days. It is through this instrumentality that Satan has many thousand souls deluded. A man who was weak and unstable from the time God called him, set himself up as Prophet and Seer to the church, and the church to receive his words as if from God's own mouth. ”

“ Joe Smith cheated the authorities by bribing his guards with Mormon gold, just as he had stated that he would from the beginning. The success of his prediction shows, if other evidence were lacking, that he was a shrewd and daring adventurer, quick to plan and bold to execute, lacking but education to have made him, from a temporal stand-point, the peer of the foremost man of his time. ”

“ In his youth Joseph Smith was quite illiterate, knew nothing of grammar composition, but obtained quite a good education after he came west; was a man of great magnetism, made friends easily, was liberal and noble in his impulses, tall, finely formed, and full of animal life, but sprung from the most humble circumstances. The first good suit of clothes he had ever worn was presented to him by Christian Whitmer, brother of David. ”

“ It is the spirit that hastily condemned and stoned the prophets of God in all ages past. So beware, and look well to your own heart, that Satan does not blind your understanding to the truth. If you are open to investigation and conviction, I pray you to read the Book of Mormon with a prayerful heart. All persons who are spiritual, having a fair understanding of the scriptures, how they can read that Book and reject it, is very strange indeed. The Book carries conviction with it. The wise men of this world could never write a book like it. ”

“ We still thought that anything Brother Joseph and Sidney Rigdon would do, must be all right and according to the will and mind of the Lord. The whole church acquies [c] ed in the error of ordaining high priests. Marvel not that we began to be led in to error so soon; the children of Israel went into gross error in forty days, following Aaron while Moses was in the mount.
I desire to say a few words here concerning prophets falling into error. Solomon, David, Saul, Uzziah and many great and gifted prophets in Israel fell into gross error, and some of them into crime. ”

“ This being Christ's order, He being from eternity to all eternity, has held this holy order of priesthood from eternity and will hold it to all eternity. Those High Priests before Christ came into the world, held this holy order of priesthood as a type of Christ's order; but when Christ came into the world, he then claimed his own holy order of priesthood and power on earth, doing away with all types and shadows under the old law, himself alone being our great and last High Priest unto whom we can go to obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. ”

“ God put man on the earth to be a free agent unto himself, to choose and discern between good and evil, between truth and error in doctrine. It is necessary for man to be tempted and tried in every way conceivable, in order for him to prove himself, and overcome every snare, device, and stumbling-block of satan, to fit him for a higher state of happiness hereafter. You know the Scriptures teach that Satan's devices may appear as an Angel of Light; for instance, a false doctrine being revealed to a prophet who gives it to a church as if it came from God. ”

“ The religion of Jesus Christ is embodied in one word, and that word is LOVE; it is the first and great commandment, for on it hangs the law and the prophets. Charity is the great lack of religious professors. As we love and judge others, so we will be judged at the last day. The principal idea in religion is the fatherhood of God, and brotherhood of man. Christ taught us to pray, Our Father who art in heaven. Our motive in serving God must be love and not fear. Those who have never had the gift of the Holy Ghost, cannot understand how a person could actually love and do good to any enemy ”

“ No, you are my ally. Or, if you please, I am yours; for neither of us can do anything without you."
At midnight, when Lilla returned to the doorway of his bedroom, David was not asleep.
She sat down on the edge of the bed. A beam of light from the corridor touched her slender figure wrapped in yellow silk, and her braided hair outlined, round her head, by a narrow golden halo. The rain had ceased, and the breeze from the window was laden with the odor of the saturated earth. Falteringly he asked her if she was chilly. ”

“ He was the bone and flesh of a man. Yes, he was that something or other not bone or flesh which is also of a man—which finally is the man. Simply literary analysis can make little out of Whitman. He does not yield to the scalpel. He is not to be resurrected from an inkpot. His voice falls in with the prophet voices. He was not unlettered. He knew the alphabet. But he kept all alphabetical, arrogance well in hand. The letter was kept in hand. The spirit was left free. You cannot buy a ticket for Athens or Weimar or Paris or London or Boston and reach Whitman. He is never reached in that circle. ”

“ The windows were open to the mews; the candle flames flickered in a tepid breeze. They could hear the faint crash of a band that was playing a Strauss waltz in Washington Square.
She had not opened the Long Island house. As for David, he had a house of his own in a corner of Westchester County, inherited from his parents, who had been well-to-do. He told her about his family and his childhood—his feeling of strangeness amid persons who had thought him very queer, and had tried by every means to make him conform to their ideals of thought. ”

“ Whitman was no humbug, but there is surely some humbug about the Whitman culte. The Whitmanites deify him. They speak of him constantly as a seer, a man of exalted intellect. I do not believe that he was a great thinker, but only a great feeler. Was he the great poet of America, or even a great poet at all? A great poet includes a great artist, and "Leaves of Grass," as has been pointed out times without number, is the raw material of poetry rather than the finished product. ”

“ In the clear light of that regenerated time, when the world looks back to the doubt and mist and confusion of to-day, Walt Whitman will stand alone, the greatest, truest, noblest prophet of the age, a man untainted by artificial life and unmoved by the false standards of his time. In a sodden, commercial, money-getting age, he enjoyed all the beauty of the earth without the vulgar lust to own. In a world of privilege and caste, he felt and taught the brotherhood of man and the kinship of all living things. ”

“ Whitman is emphatically a poet for men, not for “Select Academies for the Daughters of Gentlemen only;” and whilst much that he has written is glorious poetry to those who will, and can imbibe its spirit freely, to those who cannot thus absorb it the Parodies will appear nearly as poetical as the original. ”