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Source: Church History Vol. 3 Chapter 1 Page: 2 (~1830)

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2 4,000, as follows: Under the agency of Brigham Young up to April 21, 1841, 769 persons; under the agency of P. P. Pratt and Amos Fielding up to October 29, 1842, 1,991 persons; under the agency of Amos Fielding and Hyrum Clark up to October 21, 1843, 769 persons; under the agency of Reuben Hedlock, up to March 5,1844, 501 persons; which makes a total of 4,030 persons. These details are taken from the "Illustrated Route from Liverpool to Great Salt Lake Valley;" but the same authority quotes P. P. Pratt as saying that 1,000 had immigrated from Europe up to April, 1841; which would make 231 more than the above figures show, or a total of 4,261. At the next European annual conference held at Manchester, England, April 6, 1845, according to a note appended to the minutes, there were left in the European mission 9, 635 members, 1, 910 of whom had been baptized since the last General Conference. (Millennial Star, vol. 5, p. 178.) After allowing for the probable number baptized after the death of Joseph Smith and before the conference of 1845, we have approximately nearly or quite 13,000 European members in the church at the time of the death of the Prophet. So if there were 150,000 in the church, about 137,000 were Americans. At this same conference Elder Wilford Woodruff represented the membership in America to be "above one hundred thousand saints." (Millennial Star, vol. 5, p. 170.)

As might have been expected, when Joseph and Hyrum Smith were killed the church was thrown into confusion, and honest men differed regarding the proper course to pursue; and possibly some designing men, prompted by ambition for place and power, sought to take advantage of the church's extremity to lift themselves into positions of authority. But of this the reader will be better able to judge as we proceed.

The church was entirely unprepared for this sad condition, and hence had given little or no thought as to what would be the proper mode of procedure in such an emergency. The masses of the people had concluded that their beloved prophet would continue with them until Christ should come and the final victory was won. In

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