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Source:Martin Harris:Origin and History of the Mormonites:Yet I saw them with the eye of faith
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Martin Harris: "I did not see them, as i do that pencil-case, yet I saw them with the eye of faith"
Parent page: Book of Mormon/Witnesses/Three witnesses
Martin Harris: "I did not see them, as i do that pencil-case, yet I saw them with the eye of faith"
John A. Clark, a former pastor who considered Joseph Smith a fraud and the Book of Mormon “an imposture,” states that he heard a "gentleman in Palmyra" repeat something Harris had said,
To know how much this testimony [of three witnesses] is worth I will state one fact. A gentleman in Palmyra, bred to the law, a professor of religion, and of undoubted veracity told me that on one occasion, he appealed to Harris and asked him directly,-”Did you see those plates?” Harris replied, he did. “Did you see the plates, and the engraving on them with your bodily eyes?” Harris replied, “Yes, I saw them with my eyes,-they were shown unto me by the power of God and not of man.” “But did you see them with your natural,-your bodily eyes, just as you see this pencil-case in my hand? Now say no or yes to this.” Harris replied,-”Why I did not see them as I do that pencil-case, yet I saw them with the eye of faith; I saw them just as distinctly as I see any thing around me,-though at the time they were covered over with a cloth.[1]
Notes
- ↑ “Martin Harris interviews with John A. Clark, 1827 & 1828,” Early Mormon Documents 2:270. Also cited in "Origin and History of the Mormonites," The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, September to December 1850.