may establish virtue; nor do wicked men become candidates for martyrdom that righteousness might be established: the harmony existing in things evil, as in things good, forbids us believing such a theory. [2] It will be no valid answer to this contention to say that if the Three Witnesses cannot be proven to be conscious frauds and deceivers they may yet be relegated to that very large class known as the mistaken. We have already seen that such was the nature of the revelation vouchsafed to these Witnesses in attestation of the truth of the Book of Mormon that it cannot possibly be resolved into delusion or mistake, and it is not necessary to further discuss that proposition here. There is no middle ground on which one may place these Witnesses; inexcusable liars or true witnesses they must be; they never can be classed among the mistaken. The possibility of their being mistaken set aside, every circumstance connected with their relationship to the Book of Mormon favors the theory of their being true witnesses, their testimony standing not only unimpeached but unimpeachable; it must follow that they are God's solemn Witnesses of a great truth--the verity of the Book of Mormon. Footnotes 1. The argument in this paragraph is suggested by a similar one in _Paley's Evidences for Christianity_; and indeed it may be said to be for the most part, a paraphrase of it. 2. For a fuller treatise of the ideas and the force of the argument here presented the reader is referred to vol. I of _New Witnesses_, ch. 17. CHAPTER XX. DIRECT EXTERNAL EVIDENCES--TESTIMONY OF THE EIGHT WITNESSES. The exact time when the Eight Witnesses obtained their view of the Nephite plates is not known, but it was evidently a few days after the Three Witnesses received their testimony. All the Prophet has seen proper to say upon the subject in his own history is--alluding to the testimony that had been received by the Three Witnesses--"soon after these things had transpired, the following additional testimony was obtained." [1] Then follows the testimony of the Eight Witnesses. According to the _History of the Prophet Joseph_ by Lucy Smith, [2] the event happened a few days after the Three Witnesses obtained their testimony. The latter, be it remembered, received their view of the plates near the Whitmer residence, in Fayette township, New York; while the Eight Witnesses obtained their view of the plates near the Smith residence in Manchester. On the completion of the translation of the Book of Mormon, Joseph sent word to his parents of the joyful event, as we have already seen, and they, in company with Martin Harris, immediately set out for Fayette, and during their brief stay at the place the vision of the Three Witnesses was given. The day following Father and Mother Smith returned to Manchester, and now the latter's statement: