Twenty-Four (1829)first agreed to sign the document; but was quickly reminded by his wife that it would hurt
his standing in the community as an elected official. Upon further consideration, therefore,
Peter Sr. decided not to take part in the fraudulent, though “God-willed” act.
Before they signed the affidavit, Joseph reminded the men that they would never be
able to deny their sworn testimony or else they would then be found as an accessory to
fraud. Some remained disconcerted still. David assured them that he had indeed seen an
angel and the plates, and at his insistence, because Joseph had allowed them all to handle
and examine the Urim and Thummim—they finally agreed.
All of the Whitmer family eventually turned against Joseph. Hiram Page, the son-
in-law, who also agreed to the fraudulent affidavit, soon claimed that he had just as much
authority and power to reveal things as Joseph did. Just a year after signing the affidavit,
Hiram found his own rock and pretended to receive revelations that countered Joseph’s.^42
Hiram used the fraudulent affidavit to threaten to expose Joseph to others, but his wife
Catherine reminded him of the events of that Sunday, where a prophet of God put them
all under a strict oath to keep the secret at the peril of their own lives, impugning their
reputations—or worse. Although by now, in Hiram’s eyes, Joseph might have become a
“fallen prophet,” nevertheless, when Joseph gave them that stern warning, he
remembered believing he was a true prophet, who had not yet fallen.
To keep Hiram quiet and the situation from blowing up in public, Joseph received a
“revelation” in which Oliver Cowdery was assigned to “take thy brother, Hiram Page,
between him and thee alone, and tell him that those things which he hath written from that
stone are not of me and that Satan deceiveth him.”^43 Hiram acted out on his own when he
realized that Joseph was not going to acknowledge him as one worthy to become a leader in
the newly forming church. He never did get any “authority” until another of Joseph’s
closest associates (who would also eventually turn against Joseph—)—William M’Lellin^44 —
made him one of his own “High Priests” in an early schismatic Mormon group.
The People Got Their Religion
Joseph —faced the alienation of his close friends and associates throughout his life.
They never understood him; they couldn’t. Even if he had tried to help them understand,
they wouldn’t have been able to. All of those who sought out Joseph and accepted the Book
of Mormon were still entrenched in pits of religious thought. The people were looking for
“further light and knowledge”^45 that they could not get out of the religions of that time.
Reading the Book of Mormon didn’t help them, because seeing it, reading it, and hearing it
speak to their very souls, they still remained blind and unresponsive to the
small voice that pierced them that did hear to the center, insomuch that there
was no part of their frame that it did not cause to quake; yea it did pierce them
to the very soul, and caused their hearts to burn...and they understood it not.^46Throughout 1829, Joseph composed many revelations for those who came to him
and inquired how they could help in the Lord’s work. Through some of the revelations, the
foundation for the establishment of the religion that the people wanted began. He wrote:
In this manner did the Lord continue to give us instructions from time-to-
time, concerning the duties which now devolved upon us; and among many