That Rigdon's attention had been attracted to an "Everlasting Gospel" is proved by the constant references made to it in writings of which he had at least the supervision, from the very beginning of the church. Thus, when he preached his first sermon before a Mormon audience--on the occasion of his visit to Smith at Palmyra in 1830--he took as his text a part of the version of Revelation xiv. which he had put into the Mormon Bible (1 Nephi xiii. 40), and in his sermon, as reported by Tucker, who heard it, holding the Scriptures in one hand and the Mormon Bible in the other, he said, "that they were inseparably necessary to complete the everlasting gospel of the Saviour Jesus Christ." In the account, in Smith's autobiography, of the first description of the buried book given to Smith by the angel, its two features are named separately, first, "an account of the former inhabitants of this continent," and then "the fulness of the Everlasting Gospel." That Rigdon never lost sight of the importance, in his view, of an "Everlasting Gospel" may be seen from the following quotation from one of his articles in his Pittsburg organ, the Messenger and Advocate, of June 15, 1845, after his expulsion from Nauvoo: "It is a strict observance of the principles of the fulness of the Everlasting Gospel of Jesus Christ, as contained in the Bible, Book of Mormon, and Book of Covenants, which alone will insure a man an inheritance in the kingdom of our God." The importance attached to the "Everlasting Gospel" by the founders of the church is seen further in the references to it in the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants," which it is not necessary to cite,* and further in a pamphlet by Elder Moses of New York (1842), entitled "A Treatise on the Fulness of the Everlasting Gospel, setting forth its First Principles, Promises, and Blessings," in which he argued that the appearance of the angel to Smith was in direct line with the Scriptural teaching, and that the last days were near. * For examples see Sec. 68, 1; Sec. 101, 22; Sec. 124, 88. CHAPTER X. -- THE WITNESSES TO THE PLATES In his accounts to his neighbors of the revelation to him of the golden plates on which the "record" was written, Smith always declared that no person but him could look on those plates and live. But when the printed book came out, it, like all subsequent editions to this day, was preceded by the following "testimonies":-- "THE TESTIMONY OF THREE WITNESSES