| 599 was nearly on a balance, a ball from the door within entered his leg, and a ball from without struck his watch, a patent lever, in his vest pocket, near his left breast, and smashed it in "pie," leaving the hands standing at 5 o'clock, 16 minutes, and 26 seconds-the force of which ball threw him back on the floor, and he rolled under the bed which stood by his side, where he lay motionless, the mob from the door continuing to fire upon him, cutting away a piece of flesh from his left hip as large as his left hand, and were hindered only by my knocking down their muzzles with a stick; while they continued to reach their guns into the room, probably left handed, and aimed their discharge so far around as almost to reach us in the corner of the room to where we retreated and dodged, and then I re-commenced the attack with my stick again. Joseph attempted as the last resort to leap the same window from whence Mr. Taylor fell, when two balls pierced him from the door, and one entered his right breast from without, and he fell outward exclaiming, "O Lord my God!" As his feet went out of the window my head went in, the balls whistling all around. He fell on his left side a dead man. At this instant a cry was raised, "He's leaped the window," and the mob on the stairs and in the entry ran out. I withdrew from the window, thinking it of no use to leap out on a hundred bayonets, then around Gen Smith's body. Not satisfied with this I again reached my head out of the window and watched some seconds, to see if there were any signs of life, regardless of my own, determined to see the end of him I loved; being fully satisfied, that he was dead, with a hundred men near the body and more coming round the corner of the jail, and expecting a return to our room I rushed towards the prison door, at the head of the stairs, and through the entry from whence the firing had proceeded, to learn if the doors into the prison were open.-When near the entry, Mr. Taylor called out, "take me;" I pressed my way till I found all doors unbarred, returning instantly caught Mr. Taylor under my arm, and rushed by the stairs into the dungeon, or inner prison, stretched him on the floor and covered him with a bed in such a manner, as not likely to be perceived, expecting an immediate return of the mob. I said to Mr. Taylor, this, is a hard case to lay you on the floor, but if your wounds are not fatal I want you to live to tell the story. I expected to be shot the next moment, and stood before the door waiting the onset.
WILLARD RICHARDS.
TIMES AND SEASONS.
CITY OF NAUVOO,
THURSDAY, AUG. 1, 1844.
PERILOUS TIMES.
The ancient prophets and apostles all seem to have had a view of the great troubles of the last days; and, in order the more fully to make the subject plain, they particularized the actors, and the scenes; that the generation which was to experience the vanity of flesh, and the wrath of God, might know of a surety the exact time. To this end, Paul wrote to his son Timothy, in this wise; [2d Timothy, 3;1-4.]
"This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come; for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God."
The language of this apostle is so plain that no person of sense can possibly mistake it.-Truce breakers, false accusers and traitors, come before us in living reality. Peter also who held the keys of the kingdom, says: [2nd Peter, 2;1,-3.]
"But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privately shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction; and many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandize [merchandise] of you; whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not"
If the way of truth was ever evil spoken of, now is the time. This is not all; Peter wrote again that we "may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandments of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior, knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts." These predictions coupled with that emphatic declaration of Jesus Christ to "the Twelve;" that because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold, are all sufficient indexes to moral men, that now is the time!
A sketch of the startling atrocities, outbreaks or mobbing, in our once beloved country, for a
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