After some further conversation they expressed a desire to lay the subject before the people, and requested the privilege of preaching in Mr. Rigdon's chapel, to which he readily consented. The appointment was accordingly published, and a large and respectable congregation assembled. Oliver Cowdery and Parley P. Pratt severally addressed the meeting. At the conclusion, Mr. Rigdon arose, and stated to the congregation that the information they had that evening received was of an extraordinary character, and certainly demanded their most serious consideration; and as the Apostle advised his brethren to "prove all things, and hold fast that which is good," so he would exhort his brethren to do likewise, and give the matter a careful investigation, and not turn against it without being fully convinced of its being an imposition, lest they should, possibly, resist the truth. [Sidenote: The Work Opened at Kirtland.] A few miles from Mr. Rigdon's home in Mentor, at the town of Kirtland, where a number of the members of his church, who lived together and had all things common--from which circumstance has risen the idea that this was the case with the Church of Jesus Christ. To that place the Elders immediately repaired, and proclaimed the Gospel unto them, with considerable success; for their testimony was received by many of the people, and seventeen came forward in obedience to the Gospel. [Sidenote: The Conversion of Sidney Rigdon.] While thus engaged, they visited Mr. Rigdon occasionally, and found him very earnestly reading the Book of Mormon,--praying to the Lord for direction, and meditating on the things he heard and read; and after a {125} fortnight from the time the book was put into his hands, he was fully convinced of the truth of the work, by a revelation from Jesus Christ, which was made known to him in a remarkable manner, so that he could exclaim, "Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto me, but my Father which is in heaven." Accordingly he and his wife were both baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ; and, together with those who had been previously admitted to baptism, made a little branch of the Church, in this section of Ohio, of about twenty members. This much accomplished, the brethren bound for the borders of the Lamanites, bade an affectionate farewell to the Saints in Kirtland and vicinity; and, after adding one of their new converts to their number--Dr. Frederick G. Williams [16]--they went on their way rejoicing. Footnotes 1. Doctrine and Covenants, section 27. 2. Mr. Hale, the Prophet's father-in-law, retained the bitterness then engendered in his mind; and some years later--namely, in 1834--made an affidavit concerning the character of Joseph the Prophet, which has been very generally quoted in anti-"Mormon" works.