They ever maintained that their statement was the truth and nothing but the truth. They have all gone beyond the vail now, to receive their reward; and all but one died faithful members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In considering the nature and value of the testimony of the Prophet Joseph and the three witnesses, the following remarks by Elder Orson Pratt are most pertinent: "No reasonable person will say that these four persons were themselves deceived; the nature of their testimony is such that they must either be bold, daring impostors, or else the Book of Mormon is true. They testify that they saw the angel descend, they heard his voice, they saw the plates in his hand, they saw the engravings upon them as the angel turned them over leaf after leaf, at the same time they heard the voice of the Lord out of the heavens. What greater evidence could they have? They could have had nothing that would have given them greater assurance. If they were deceived there is no certainty in anything. If these four men could be deceived in seeing an angel descend from heaven, on the same grounds the apostles may have been deceived in seeing the Savior ascend up to heaven." Then in answer to the suggestion that it is probable that these four men had conspired together to deceive mankind, Brother Pratt asks: "Is it probable that four men who were, for the most of their days, strangers to each other, residing in three or four different counties, should combine together to testify that they had seen an angel and heard his voice, and also the voice of God, bearing testimony to the truth of the Book of Mormon, when no such thing had happened? Three of these witnesses, namely, Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer, were young men from twenty to twenty-five years of age; they were men who had been accustomed from their childhood to the peaceful vocations of a farmer's life. Unacquainted with the deceptions, which are more or less practiced in large towns and cities, they possessed the open honesty and simplicity so generally characteristic of country people. Is it, in the least degree, probable that men so young and inexperienced, accustomed to a country life, and unacquainted with the world at large, would be so utterly abandoned to every thing that was good, so perfectly reckless as to their own future welfare, so heaven-daring and blasphemous as to testify to all nations that which, if false, would forever seal their damnation? We are not aware that there ever were three, or four, or five impostors who originated an imposition, and succeeded in palming it upon the world as a message from God. Such a thing might barely be possible, but such a thing would be highly improbable."[E] [Footnote E: From "Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon"] CHAPTER XI. OLIVER COWDERY.