“Here is the prophetic word which attests that Martin Harris’s trip to New York was based upon more than his own curiosity or desire for academic substantiation for the Book of Mormon translation. Joseph Smith was commanded of the Lord to send another to New York, and Joseph sent Martin Harris.
“Charles Anthon was indeed a learned man by the world’s standards: he was a professor of classics—Greek and Latin—at Columbia University in New York” (McConkie and Millet, Doctrinal Commentary, 1:322).