This revelation was meant, not for Cowdery, but for Emma Smith. Racked anew with doubt, chagrined over their poverty, and frightened by the rancor that greeted her husband’s preaching, she had been the first to urge him to go back to the soil. She had seen no plates and heard no voices. She had held out six weeks after the church was organized before she was baptized, and now it was mid-July and she had not been “confirmed” an official member. Her parents’ contempt, her neighbors’ derision, and even the death of her child she had borne with fortitude. But the prospect of living off the dubious
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