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
day while reading in his Testament he came to the fifth verse in the first
chapter of James, which reads as follows:

"If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all
men liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him."

This was just the thing. God had surely led him to read that verse. Joseph
certainly lacked wisdom, and here was a way to find out what he wanted to
know about the sects. The Lord would tell him. All he had to do was to ask.
How simple it was!

On a beautiful morning in the spring of the year 1820, Joseph decided to
ask the Lord for wisdom. He went out into a grove near his father's house,
and after looking around to make sure that he was alone, he kneeled down on
the grass under the trees and began to pray. No sooner had he begun than
some awful power which he could not see took hold of him and made it nearly
impossible for him to speak. It soon became dark around the boy, and Joseph
thought the unseen power would kill him; but he struggled hard and tried to
pray to God for help.

Just at that moment Joseph saw a great light coming down from above, and
then the evil power left him. The light was brighter than the sun, and as