| 187 country, in the broad and wild prairie, in the barren and desolate plains, and there commenced anew; we made the desolate places to bud and blossom as the rose; and now the fiend-like race are disposed to give us no rest. Their father, the Devil, is hourly calling upon them to be up and doing, and they, like willing and obedient children, need not the second admonition; but in the name of Jesus Christ the Son of the living God we will endure it no longer, if the great God will arm us with courage, with strength and with power, to resist them in their persecutions. We will not act on the offensive, but always on the defensive; our rights and our liberties shall not be taken from us and we peaceably submit to it, as we have done heretofore; but we will avenge ourselves of our enemies, inasmuch as they will not let us alone.
"But to return again to our subject. We found the place for the city, and the brethren were instructed to gather immediately into it, and soon they should be organized according to the laws of God. A more particular history of this city may be expected hereafter, perhaps at its organization and dedication. We found a new route home, saving, I should think, three or four miles. We arrived at Far West about the close of daylight. . . .
"Sunday, 2d. . . . The First Presidency attended meeting as usual in the morning. I tarried at home in the evening to examine the church records, and spent a part of the time in company with a gentleman from Livingston County, who had become considerably excited on account of a large collection of people, as they said, to take Joseph Smith, Jr., and Lyman Wight for going to one Adam Black's in Daviess County; and as they said, President Smith and Colonel Wight had resisted the officer who had endeavored to take them, etc; and accordingly these men are assembling to take them, as they say. They are collected from every part of the country to Daviess County. Report says they are collecting from eleven counties, to help take two men who had never resisted the law or officer, neither thought of doing so, and this they knew at the same time, or many of them at least. This looks a little too much like mobocracy;
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