Concerning the manner in which the plates and other sacred things were shown to him, beyond what is stated in the testimony of the Three Witnesses published in the first and every subsequent edition of the Book of Mormon, Oliver Cowdery, so far as I know, has left nothing on record further than to say: I beheld with my eyes and handled with my hands the gold plates from which it (the Book of Mormon) was transcribed. I also saw with my eyes and handled with my hands the holy interpreters (the Urim and Thummim). [13] Martin Harris, so far as any direct personal statement is concerned, is silent as to the manner in which the plates were shown to him; but Elder Edward Stevenson, of the First Council of the Seventy of the Church, who was much interested in Mr. Harris during the closing years of that gentleman's life, states that at a gathering of friends at his (Stevenson's) house, in Salt Lake City, Harris was asked to explain the manner in which the plates containing the characters of the Book of Mormon were exhibited. The response he made is thus described: Brother Harris, said that the angel stood on the opposite side of the table on which were the plates, the interpreters, etc., and took the plates in his hand and turned them over. To more fully illustrate this to them, Brother Martin took up a book and turned the leaves over one by one. The angel declared that the Book of Mormon, was correctly translated by the power of God, and not of man, and that it contained the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Nephites, who were a branch of the House of Israel and had come from the land of Jerusalem to America. The Witnesses were required to bear their testimony of these things, and of this open vision, to all people, and he [Harris] testified not only to those present, but to all the world, that these things were true, and before God, whom he expected to meet in the day of judgment, he lied not. [14] David Whitmer made a statement to Elders Orson Pratt and Joseph F. Smith in the course of an interview at Richmond, Missouri, on the 7th of September, 1878, in which he gives quite a minute description of the manner in which the plates and the other sacred things were shown to himself and Oliver Cowdery in the presence of Joseph Smith. Mr. Whitmer's account of the event as related by Elders Pratt and Smith is as follows: Elder Orson Pratt: Do you remember what time you saw the plates?