Apostates

DEER JESUS

(True stories of Martin Harris,
reliable witness to the Book of Mormon)

Reading scriptures late at night, his candle starts to sputter
Martin’s eyes go wide with fear, his heart begins to flutter
He knows this means the devil’s near and wants him to desist
But Martin keeps his faith and reads, daring to persist.

Martin Harris never was a man to harbor doubt
Common sense and careful thought held very little clout
Once he saw a jack-ass devil walking down the road
Sleek-haired Satan walked right by and Martin never slowed!

Then, he met a super special deer while on a walk--
Jesus was a deer that day! The two of them just talked!
They roamed together down the trail, Martin and the Savior
Talking to a Jesus-deer is perfectly sane behavior.

One day Joseph needed men to witness plates of gold
Martin Harris, one of three, was chosen to “behold!”
But did he see the plates for real or with his “spiritual eyes”?
Depends on which account you read, and surely they’re not lies!

No matter where he went, he saw visions and supernatural appearances all around him. He told a gentleman in Palmyra, after one of his excursions to Pennsylvania, while the translation of the Book of Mormon was going on, that on the way he met the Lord Jesus Christ, who walked along by the side of him in the shape of a deer for two or three miles, talking with him as familiarly as one man talks with another.

Vogel, Dan. “Chapter 2.” Early Mormon Documents, Signature Books, Salt Lake City, UT, 2000, pp. 271–271.

A biographer wrote that Harris's ‘imagination was excitable and fecund.’ For example, Harris once perceived a sputtering candle to be the work of the devil. An acquaintance said that Harris claimed to have seen Jesus in the shape of a deer and walked and talked with him for two or three miles. The local Presbyterian minister called him ‘a visionary fanatic.’

Martin Harris (Latter Day Saints).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Feb. 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Harris_(Latter_Day_Saints).