During the final five years of his life, Martin had ample opportunities to share his witness with the Saints. During the last year of his life, he testified: “I tell you of these things that you may tell others that what I have said is true, and I dare not deny it; I heard the voice of God commanding me to testify to the same.” – In Richard Lloyd Anderson, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses (1981), 118.
George Godfrey, a longtime acquaintance, sat up with Martin for many nights while he battled the illness that eventually claimed his life on July 10, 1875, in Clarkston, Utah. Just a few hours before Martin’s death, Godfrey said, “I asked him if he did not feel that there was an element, at least, of fraudulence and deception in the things that were written and told of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, and he replied as he had always done, so many, many times in my hearing, and with the same spirit he always manifested when enjoying health and vigor.”
Martin then declared: “The Book of Mormon is no fake. I know what I know. I have seen what I have seen and I have heard what I have heard. I have seen the gold plates from which the Book of Mormon is written. An angel appeared to me and others and testified to the truthfulness of the record, and had I been willing to have perjured myself and sworn falsely to the testimony I now bear, I could have been a rich man, but I could not have testified other than I have done and am now doing, for these things are true.” – In Tad R. Callister, A Case for the Book of Mormon (2019), 150.
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The three witnesses devoted their lives to defending their witness of the Book of Mormon. It’s time to accept their testimony as truth.
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Read the Testimony of the Three Witnesses of The Book of Mormon here …
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/…/script…/bofm/three
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source: “The Last Witness of the Three Witnesses” – Michael R. Morris – New Era – January 2020