Mother Smith gives an explanation of Joe's failure to secure the
plates on this occasion, which he omits: "As he was taking them,
the unhappy thought darted through his mind that probably there
was something else in the box besides the plates, which would be
of pecuniary advantage to him.... Joseph was overcome by the
power of darkness, and forgot the injunction that was laid upon
him. "The mistakes which the Deity made in Joe's character
constantly suggest to the lay reader the query why the Urim and
Thummim were not turned on Joe.

On September 22, 1827, when Joe visited the hill (following his
own story again), the same messenger delivered to him the plates,
the Urim and Thummim and the breastplate, with the warning that
if he "let them go carelessly" he would be "cut off", and a
charge to keep them until the messenger called for them.

Mother Smith's story of the securing of the plates is to the
effect that about midnight of September 21 Joseph and his wife
drove away from his father's house with a horse and wagon
belonging to a Mr. Knight. He returned after breakfast the next
morning, bringing with him the Urim and Thummim, which he showed
to her, and which she describes as "two smooth, three-cornered
diamonds set in glass, and the glasses were set in silver bows
that were connected with each other in much the same way as
old-fashioned spectacles. "She says that she also saw the
breastplate through a handkerchief, and that it "was concave on
one side and convex on the other, and extended from the neck
downward as far as the stomach of a man of extraordinary size. It
had four straps of the same material for the purpose of fastening