JOSEPH'S WILLING TOIL—FOUR YEARS OF WAITING—HE FINDS WORK IN PENNSYLVANIA—HIS MARRIAGE WITH EMMA HALE—THE PROBATION COMPLETED.  
When Joseph first stood upon the sacred hill Cumorah, he was in his eighteenth year. The time in which the human character most strongly assumes its shaping was to be with him the ensuing four years.
 
Wondrous as had been the vision of the host of Heaven and the ranks of Lucifer; exalting as were the communications from the Lord; mighty as was to be the mission of translation; yet Joseph had day by day the humble labors of life to perform. Without a murmur he accepted his lot of toil, working with his hands to aid in the family maintenance, while his mind was busy with eternal truths. There is always a heroism in the honest, uncomplaining home-toil of youth: a necessary heroism, indeed, for without the early-formed habit of industry for man, the Almighty's purposes concerning mankind would fail. And that heroism is doubly beautiful in the life of Joseph, who knew already his destiny, divinely ordained. Left much to itself in the selfishness of earth, a weaker or an unsustained soul would have wasted its powers in vain dreamings or found its destruction in pride and self-glory.
 
The sweat of the face, therefore, was at once a necessity and a salutation: a requisite for the family welfare and comfort; a protection from enervating dreams. No husbandman of all that neighborhood was more industrious than he; and, except for the hatred bred against him by false teachers and their followers, no one would have had a better reputation.
 
As the younger sons of the family grew into vigor, the small farm and the home duties less exacted the diligence of Joseph; and when an opportunity came, in his twentieth year, for remunerative employment at a distance, he willingly accepted the offer. The engagement carried him to Susquehanna County, State of Pennsylvania, where the employer, Josiah Stoal, though dwelling in New York State, had some property upon which Joseph worked, while he boarded at the neighboring house of Mr. Isaac Hale. Stoal conceived the idea that there were signs of a silver deposit in his land, and he put his farming men to the work of mining. It was soon evident that he had become infatuated with the hope of achieving sudden and extraordinary wealth and was squandering his means in a pursuit which gave no promise of an adequate return. Joseph, who had become a favorite with Mr. Stoal because of industry and good judgment, remonstrated with him, and finally influenced him to withdraw from his sordi............