Since, then, the possibility of mistake or delusion, is eliminated from the revelation to the Three Witnesses, let us consider the likelihood of conscious, intentional fraud; a deliberately planned deception, through the collusion of Joseph Smith and the Three Witnesses, by which the Book of Mormon was to be palmed off upon mankind as a volume of ancient scripture, and a new Church organization brought into existence. _First_. It must occur to every unbiased reflector upon the subject that every circumstance is against the likelihood of collusion. The very youthfulness of the men, the Prophet and the Three Witnesses, is against such a hypothesis. Joseph Smith, at the time of the publication of the Book of Mormon, was about twenty-five years old; Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer were also of that age, all having been born in the year 1805-6. Martin Harris was older, it is true, having been born in the year 1783; but he, as an exception to the youthfulness of the group, will not affect the argument based on this score of youthfulness, as his influence with the rest held no proportion to the difference of age between himself with the other members of the group. Indeed, though the oldest, he was the least influential of the number; and withal so simple-minded in his honesty, that the world, if it knew him, would acquit him of guile, and regard him as a wholly impossible factor in practicing such a monumental delusion upon mankind as foisting the Book of Mormon upon the world as a revelation from God would have been had not the book been true. I would not argue that young men are incapable of practicing deception, or formulating delusions. My argument is, merely, that they are less likely to be guilty of it than older men. Youth is essentially the period of honesty in men's lives. Youth is not hardened in sin; is not so capable of the grosser wickedness, especially such wickedness as would be involved in the deliberate deception of their fellows. Neither has unholy ambitions fired the soul in youth. The hopes, the aspirations, the ambitions of youth are generally pure and noble. Unholy ambitions as a rule come later. The practice of religious deception is one of the grossest forms of wickedness, and requires the deepest depravity of the human heart to make one capable of it: and since youth is the period of men's lives in which they are least desperately wicked, it follows that the very youthfulness of this group of men we are considering stands against the likelihood of their combining to deceive mankind in this matter of the revelations of God to them about the Book of Mormon.