| 353 joy unspeakable that they were accounted worthy to suffer in the glorious cause of their divine Master.
"There lay the printing office a heap of ruins; Elder Phelp's furniture strewed over the garden as common plunder; the revelations, bookwork, papers, and press in the hands of the mob as the booty of highway robbers; there was Bishop Partridge in the midst of his family, with a few friends, endeavoring to scrape off the 'tar,' which, from eating his flesh, seemed to have been prepared with lime, pearlash, acid, or some flesh-eating commodity, to destroy him; and there was Charles Allen in the same awful condition. As the heart sickens at the recital, how much more at the picture! More than once, those people, in this boasted land of liberty, were brought into jeopardy, and threatened with expulsion or death because they wished to worship God according to the revelations of heaven, the Constitution of their country, and the dictates of their own consciences. Oh liberty, how art thou fallen! Alas! clergymen! where is thy charity? In the smoke that ascendeth up forever and ever.
"Early in the morning of the 23d of July, the mob again assembled, armed with weapons of war, and bearing a red flag. Whereupon the elders, led by the Spirit of God, and in order to save time, and stop the effusion of blood, entered into a treaty with the mobbers to leave the county within a certain time, which treaty, with accompanying documents, will appear in its proper place. The execution of this treaty presented an opportunity for the brethren in Zion to confer with the presidency in Kirtland concerning their situation, which they improved by dispatching Elder O. Cowdery, a special messenger, after a delay of two or three days.
"Thursday night, the 31st of October, gave the saints in Zion abundant proof that no pledge, written or verbal, was longer to be regarded; for on that night, between forty and fifty in number, many of whom were armed with guns, proceeded against a branch of the church west of Big Blue, and unroofed and partly demolished ten dwelling houses, and in the midst of the shrieks and screams of women and children
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