to work hard for a living, so when the boys were old enough they had to
help on the farm; this they willingly, did. For this reason Joseph did not
go to school much, but he learned to read, to write fairly well, and to
work some examples in arithmetic. Though Joseph did not get much of an
education at school, yet he was a great student; and then God became his
teacher, so that before he died, as you will see, he became one of the most
learned men in the world.

When Joseph was ten years old they all moved from Vermont to Palmyra, in
the western part of the state of New York. Four years later they moved
again to the small town of Manchester, in Ontario, now Wayne County, New
York.

While the family was living at Manchester there arose a great religious
excitement all through the country. The different religious sects held many
meetings and tried to get people to join them. Joseph was now in his
fifteenth year and he also became interested, as his parents had always
taught him to believe in God and the Bible. Joseph thought he would like to
join the true church of Christ, but what troubled him was to know which of
all these sects was the true church. He could see that all of them could
not be true, as God surely would not have a great many churches, one
striving against the other; also, no doubt, he had read in the Bible that
there was but "one Lord, one faith, one baptism," etc., which the Lord
accepted. Joseph went first to one meeting, then to another. His mother and
some of his brothers and sisters had joined the Presbyterians, but Joseph
could not make up his mind what to do.

But there is a way by which anyone may find out which is the true church
and therefore which to join, and every boy and girl that reads this book
should remember it. It is this: Ask God. Joseph did not know this until one