OLIVER COWDERY IS SENT OF HEAVEN TO AID THE PROPHET—THE AARONIC PRIESTHOOD IS BROUGHT TO EARTH BY CHRIST'S FORERUNNER—FIRST BAPTISMS OF THIS DISPENSATION.  
Almost a year had passed from the day upon which Martin Harris began his service as a scribe for Joseph, when once more an earthly messenger of help appeared to the Prophet.
 
It was at the hour of sunset on the Sabbath day, April 5th, 1829, when Oliver Cowdery came to the Prophet's door—in Harmony, Susquehanna County, state of Pennsylvania. This young man, Oliver Cowdery, a school teacher, had been carried in the autumn of the year 1828, in fulfillment of an engagement, to the town of Manchester, New York. Hearing there of the angelic visitations to the unlearned farm-lad, Joseph Smith, he was led to a deep and prayerful investigation of the subject. A powerful conviction that Joseph had been ministered to by heavenly beings, as he had testified, was wrought upon Oliver's mind, and he asked the Lord for direct guidance. His prayer was answered, and the Lord made plain to him that his would be the privilege and the duty to aid the young Prophet as a scribe or secretary. Situated as Oliver Cowdery was, he needed inspiration from the Almighty to enable him to decide to accept such a mission; for around and within the little village of Manchester at that dark hour surged the spirits of hatred, cruelty, falsehood and even murder, and no man from any selfish wish, would have cared to ally himself in acts or sympathetic words with the cause and the man condemned by all the power of the pulpit. As soon as he could gain honorable release from his school duties, Oliver journeyed to Pennsylvania and presented himself to Joseph as one who had a wish to serve God and aid His chosen servant.
 
This was the first conversion by the testimony of the Spirit of one who had not seen the Prophet. The Church speaks for itself of the hundreds of thousands of honest souls who have had the testimony of the Holy Ghost since that hour.
 
Joseph accepted Oliver as the embodied answer to his prayer for help; and on Tuesday, the 7th day of April, 1829—two days after they had first beheld each other in the flesh—the Prophet began dictating to Oliver in continuance of the work of translation. While they labored the revelations of God came to them in guidance of their daily work, in support of their hopes and in the enlargement of their understandings concerning the principles of salvation.
 
As they progressed, they encountered a passage of the revealed record which spoke of baptism for the remission of sins. Deeply imbued with the sense of their great responsibility, Joseph and Oliver felt as if a personal message had come to them, requiring their compliance with some sacred observance. They talked together long and earnestly upon the subject; and one day in the month of May, 1829, they went into the woods together and knelt before the Lord. They asked Him for light concerning the matter of baptism for the remission of sins. While kneeling with uncovered heads and lifting up their voices in supplication, a messenger of Heaven, clothed in dazzling glory, descended before their eyes. As in the other visitations which had come to the Prophet alone, this personage was also surrounded by a supernal light. He stated to them that he was John, known as John the Baptist at the time of Christ; and that he had come to minister to them, being under the direction of Peter, James and John, the apostles who still held the keys of the priesthood after the order of Melchisedec. He laid his hands upon their heads and said:
 
Upon you my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah, I confer the priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels and of the gospel of repentance and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; and this shall never be taken again from the earth until the sons of Levi do offer again an offering unto the Lord in righteousness.
 
Then this heavenly personage, concerning whom the Savior Himself had said: "Among those that are born of women, there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist," and whose unique and glorious privilege it had been while in mortality to administer the ordinance of baptism to the Son of God, instructed them in the duties of the Aaronic priesthood to which they had just been ordained. He said to Joseph and Oliver that the Aaronic priesthood did not possess the authority to bestow the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands, but that such power belonged to the priesthood of Melchisedec, which in due time would be conferred upon them. John then commanded them that they should go forth unto the water: and by the authority which he had transmitted to them they should each baptize the other—Joseph to immerse Oliver first, and then Oliver to perform the sam............