Chapter III. Realistic Character of the Visitation

Incidents from Oliver Cowdery's narrative of the event. The Angel's visit to Joseph in the field. He tells his Father of the Vision and is charged by him to obey the Angel.

All night had the angel been with Joseph. 'Till the dawn of morn had he tarried. Thrice had he descended and thrice ascended, with all the circumstances of reality in his appearing.

Nor let it be thought that the physical is the only real, and that the spiritual and immortal are unreal. A wrong classification this of the ideas of the two moods of existence, as well as an inadequate and improper wording. The spiritual and immortal are the very adamant of being. ' Indeed, the demonstration of immortality is in the fact that it is the real, and not the unreal, of existence. It is the physical that, through dissolution, passes away, and in that passing away Nature is confounded, for a moment, in the midnight of death, — the midnight of existence, in fact, for the moment thereafter is the dawn of the everlasting. There cannot be anything more certain than the fact that the intellectual

world has either to give up all affirmation of the spiritual, or else treat it as the very essence of reality.

Now it is this realistic character of Joseph Smith's visions and experiences that makes him to be such a valuable problem for the age. He is of more value to the scientist than to the mere visionary disciple ; and he may yet become a very solid subject of study for the skeptical intellect.

It is not now as in 1823; not now as in the lifetime, of this extraordinary man. To-day a newfound spiritual sense is awaking in all society, insomuch that those who possess it most, if also endowed with intellectual acumen, fear greatly that the world is becoming spiritually insane.

Positively refreshing and restful, to intellect, is it to find a prophet so sound, so strong, so large in mind and robust in physique as Joseph Smith. There is no more insanity in him than in the giant oak of the forest. He dwelt in the very glare and illumination of a spiritual existence, and yet was the founder, organizer, and leader of a Latter-day Israel. It is this which makes him so rare a study. Not better was Moses, — he who, in the solidity of his physical and mental strength, turned aside to investigate the burning bush, and then conversed with Jehovah, in an extraordinary business-like way, about the deliverance of Israel. Not more real was Jacob's angel, with whom he wrestled all night, than were the angels of our times to Joseph.

And mark how circumstantial was the business of the angel with Joseph. Oliver Cowdery, who was his scribe in translating the Book of Mormon, tells

us that the angel, on the above-mentioned occasion, gave a general history of the Ancients of the American Continent. In fact his narrative was a sketch of the Book of Mormon, with oracular interspersions and personal charges to Joseph ; so that during the interviews of that night he was made well acquainted with the Lord's business, in its opening views and purposes.

An incident, worthy of note, in the interesting narrative, is that of the angel showing Joseph in vision the place where the plates were deposited. It illustrates the seeric scope, and one phase of the seeric gift.

But perhaps the greatest marvel of that night's experience was the angel's deliberate ascensions and repeated returns to rehearse his subject, giving, by the intervals of Joseph's personal self-possession, an absolute sense of the reality of the whole. There is such a realistic character about this that it is made to be one of the chief features of that remarkable night. It is, moreover, quite ancient in its method and style. Those familiar with Homer will remember how exact were the messengers from the skies in rehearsing their messages from the Gods. Joseph, however, simply records the returns and repetitions of the angel as an incident that astonished him, and is seemingly not at all conscious of the antique forms of the visit. The personage was decidedly an ancient.

And the angel gathered the mantle of his glory around him. The description which Joseph gives of this phenomenon is as beautifully suggestive for the idealist as exact for the scientist : " I saw the

light in the room begin to gather immediately around the person of him who had been speaking to me," etc.

Then crew the cock as the angel ascended the third time, and the morning dawned. Truly a poetic fitness this to the dawn of the great spiritual day of Messiah's coming.

And as the narrative continues the realistic increases. Says Joseph:

" I shortly after arose from my bed, and, as usual, went to the necessary labors of the day, but, on attempting to labor as at other times, I found my strength so exhausted as to render me entirely unable. My father, who was laboring along with me, discovered something to be wrong with me, and told me to go home. I started, with the intention of going to the house, but, in attempting to cross the fence out of the field where we were, my strength entirely failed me, and I fell helpless on the ground, and for a time was quite unconscious of anything. The first thing that I can recollect, was a voice speaking unto me, calling me by name; I looked up and beheld the same messenger standing over my head, surrounded by Tight as before. He then again related all that he had related unto me the previous night, and commanded me to go to my father, and tell him of the vision and commandments which I had received. I obeyed. I returned to my father in the field and rehearsed the whole matter to him. He replied to me that it was of God, and bade me go and do as commanded by the messenger."