Is this true? If so, all right; if it is not, you owe it to me and to your family to tell it. You are an old man and will soon pass away, and I wish to know if Joseph Smith, in your intimacy with him for fourteen years, has not said something to you that led you to believe he obtained that book in some other way than what he had told you. Give me all you know about it, that I may know the truth.' My father, after I had finished saying what I have repeated above, looked at me a moment, raised his hand above his head and slowly said, with tears glistening in his eyes: 'My son, I can swear before high heaven that what I have told you about the origin of that book is true. Your mother and sister, (Mrs. Athalia Robinson), were present when that book was handed to me in Mentor, Ohio, and all I ever knew about the origin of that book was what Parley P. Pratt, Oliver Cowdery, Joseph Smith and the witnesses who claimed they saw the plates have told me, and in all of my intimacy with Joseph Smith he never told me but the one story, and that was that he found it engraved upon gold plates in a hill near Palmyra, New York, and that an angel had appeared to him and directed him where to find it; and I have never, to you or any one else, told but the one story, and that I now repeat to you.' I believed him, and now believe he told me the truth. He also said to me after that that Mormonism was true; that Joseph Smith was a Prophet, and this world would find it out some day." [156] [Footnote 156: "Life of Sidney Rigdon," by his son, John W. Rigdon, ms. pp. 188-195. The passages quoted in the text will be found in the "History of the Church," Vol. I, pp. 112-3. Also "Y.M.M.I.A. Manual" for 1905-6, pp. 485-6.] Not only does John W. Rigdon give this valuable statement as to his father's position respecting the Book of Mormon, but he adds the following from his mother: "After my father's death, my mother, who survived him several years, was in the enjoyment of good health up to the time of her last sickness, she being eighty-six years old. A short time before her death I had a conversation with her about the origin of the Book of Mormon, and wanted to know what she remembered about its being presented to my father. She said to me in that conversation that what my father had told me about the book being presented to him was true, for she was present at the time and knew that was the first time he ever saw it, and that the stories told about my father writing the Book of Mormon were not true. This she said to me in her old age, and when the shadows of the grave were gathering around her; and I believe her." [157] [Footnote 157: "History of the Church," Vol. I, p. 123, note.] THE REAL ORIGIN OF THE SPAULDING THEORY.