| 52 'proposing the planting a stake of Zion in Wisconsin;' and this letter was a reply to that proposal. And it is equally clear to me that Smith would not have made a request for reports of progress from time to time if he had known he was going to be martyred and the appointment was not to go into effect until his death.
"The point I wish to make is this: Strang was appointed just as the letter reads as a whole, to establish a 'stake of Zion,' or a branch of the main church, to which he was subject and must make report, and with his death or removal that branch would be without a head until a new one could be appointed by the President of the central or mother church. But Smith's death occurring so suddenly, and before the letter had been made public, gave Strang an opportunity, which he was shrewd enough to grasp, to undertake to lead the whole church. How well he succeeded is a matter of history.
"His removal from Voree was one of the primary causes of his fall, for in the words of the vision, 'There shall my people have peace and rest, and shall not be moved.' So far as I have been able to learn the history of the church at Voree, before any other scheme was advanced, it had peace, and rest, and prosperity. But with the removal to Beaver Island, Strang and his followers passed from the dominion of primitive Mormonism into a little kingdom of their own, and thereby Strang became supreme ruler of the whole kingdom, instead of head of simply a branch.
"Bearing indirectly on this subject is another item of some importance. In 1846, at Voree, Strang pronounced a curse upon certain ministers, a portion of which I here quote: 'As for those who, as gospel ministers, have assumed to teach such damning, soul destroying doctrines (that deceit, fraud, lying, perjury, plundering unbelievers, polygamy, fornication, and adultery are required by the command of God in the upbuilding of his kingdom) in the name of God and the Lord Jesus Christ, may their bones rot in the living tomb of their flesh; may their flesh generate from its own corruptions a loathesome [loathsome] life for others; may their blood swarm a leprous life of motelike ghastly corruption,
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