| 759 death," will be long enough, excruciating enough, and woful [woeful] enough, to satisfy the "uttermost farthing" for murdering the Lord's anointed! and the punishment still is eternal.
But I must begin to talk about Nauvoo, for I think I have said enough to prove the "mystery," whether the perishing philosophy of the age credit it, or not; so you may set me down as a living monument of Mormonism, and with the Twelve, there will then be thirteen united saints, bearing this testimony to the world that God, man, and Mormonism, are not only material, but eternal, and therefore, like Jesus, when martyred they come to life again.
I shall not describe the localities of Nauvoo, now, because I shall not have room; but as to the facilities, tranquilities [tranquillity's], and virtues of the city, they are not equalled [equaled] on the globe. The saints, since Sidney, the great "Anti-Christ" of the last days and his sons of 'Sceva,' have left Nauvoo, together with some other Simon Maguses, or foolish virgins, and wicked men who had crept in to revel on the bliss of Jehovah, have gone also, peace, union and harmony prevail.
I speak advisedly when I say Nauvoo is the best place in the world. No vice is meant to be tolerated: no grog shops allowed: nor would we have any trouble, if it were not for our lenity in suffering the world, as I shall call them, to come in and trade and enjoy our society as they say: which thing has made us the only trouble of late. These pretended friends, too frequently like old Baalam's girls, when let in among the young men of Israel, find admirers, and break the ordinances of the city, and then "Phineas' javelin," touches the heart.
The temple is up as high as the caps of the pilasters, and it looks majestic, and especially to me, when I know that the tithing, "the mites of the poor," thus speaks of the glory of God. All the description that is necessary to give you now, is that this splendid model of Mormon grandeur, exhibits thirty hewn stone pilasters which cost about $3,000 apiece.-The base is a crescent new moon: the capitols, near fifty feet high, the sun, with a human face in bold relief, about two and a half feet broad, ornamented with rays of light and waves, surmounted by two hands holding two trumpets. It is always too much trouble to describe an unfinished building. The inside work is now going forward as fast as possible. When the whole structure is completed it will cost some five or six hundred thousand dollars; and as Captain Brown of Tobasco, near the ruins of Palenque, said, "it will look the nearest like the splendid remains of antiquity in Central America of any thing he had seen, though not half so large."
The temple is erected from white limestone, wrought in a superior style: is 128 by 88 feet square; near 60 feet high: two stories in the clear, and two half stories in the recesses over the arches; four tiers of windows; two gothic and two round. The two great stories will each have two pulpits, one at teach end; to accommodate the Melchisedek [Melchizedek] and Aaronic priesthoods; graded into four rising seats: the first for the president of the elders, and his two counsellors [counselors]; the second for the president of the high priesthood and his two counsellors [counselors]; the third for the Melchisedek [Melchizedek] president and his two counsellors [counselors], and the fourth for the president over the whole church, (the first president) and his two counsellors [counselors]. This highest seat is where the scribes and pharisees used to crowd in "to Moses' seat" The Aaronic pulpit at the other end the same.
The fount in the basement story is for the baptism of the living, for health, for remission of sin, and for the salvation of the dead, as was the case in Solomon's temple, and all temples that God commands to be built. You know I am no Gentile, and of course, do not believe that a monastery, cathedral, chapel, or meeting house erected by the notions and calculations of men, has any more sanction from God than any common house in Babylon.
The steeple of our temple will be high enough to answer for a tower:-between 100 and 200 feet high. But I have said enough about the temple; when finished it will show more wealth, more art, more science, more revelation, more splendor, and more God, than all the rest of the world, and that will make it a Mormon temple:-"God and Liberty;" patterned somewhat after the order of our fore fathers', which were after the order of eternity.
The other public puildings [buildings] in Nauvoo, besides the temple, are the Seventies Hall, the Masonic Hall, and Concert Hall; all spacious, and well calculated for their designated purposes.
There is no licensed grocery to sell or give away liquors of any kind in the city; drunkards are scarce. Probable number of inhabitants, 14,000: nine-tenths Mormons.
Now for the welfare of your relatives. I have seen your mother and she cried for joy over your letter. Though in her 69th year, her heart was big with hope for her "darling son, William:"-and she blessed you in the name of the Lord.
The rest, I think, enjoy good health, and especially Emma, who amid her great affliction, has given birth to a son, and like David
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