"I went at the end of each year, and at each time I found the same messenger there, and received instructions and intelligence from him at each of our interviews, respecting what the Lord was going to do, and how and in what manner his kingdom was to be conducted in the last days." Doubtless, however, the instructions then received but only so casually mentioned by the prophet, bore fruit in the progress of the work, in the things which the prophet said and did. The fact that much more happened than is stated in the narrative here quoted is evident; and not only is it evident from what the prophet himself says, but from what has been written by others who were associated with him in the work, and who must have received their information from the Prophet Joseph himself. Among these is Oliver Cowdery, who was the second Elder of the Church, and the first to give to the world any account in detail of these early events connected with the coming forth of the great work of God. This he did in 1834-5, in a series of nine letters to the _Saints Messenger and Advocate_, published at Kirtland, Ohio, under the caption, "Early Scenes and Incidents in the Church." And as these letters were published in the lifetime of the prophet, with his sanction and in a periodical published by the Church, it cannot be doubted that the statements contained in them are reliable. In these letters Oliver Cowdery gives an account of the young Prophet's first visit to Cumorah that is much more circumstantial than the description of that event by the Prophet, and which Oliver Cowdery could only have learned from Joseph himself. It will be remembered that in the account already quoted from the personal history of the Prophet Joseph that he said the angel Moroni had warned him that Satan would tempt him, on account of his father's indigent circumstances, to obtain the plates for the purpose of getting rich; but this he must not do, nor have any other object in view than that of glorifying God; and he must be influenced by no other consideration than that of building up God's kingdom. Otherwise, he could not get possession of the plates. And now Cowdery's account of the young Prophet's first visit to Cumorah. After quoting the instructions of the angel, directing Joseph to go to the hill Cumorah, Cowdery says: