| 832 TIMES AND SEASONS.
"TRUTH WILL PREVAIL."
Vol. VI. No. 5.] CITY OF NAUVOO, ILL. March 15, 1845. [Whole No. 113.
HISTORY OF JOSEPH SMITH.
[Continued.]
After the mob had ceased yelling, and retired; and while evening was spreading her dark mantle over the unblushing scenery, as if to hide it from the gaze of day; men, women and children, who had been driven or frightened from their homes, by yells and threats, began to return from their hiding places, in thickets, corn fields, woods and groves, and view with heavy hearts the scenery of desolation and wo; and while they mourned over fallen man, they rejoiced with 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, pearl-ash, 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 23rd 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.
On the same day, while the brethren in Missouri were preparing to leave the county, through the violence of the mob, the corner stones of the Lord's House were laid in Kirtland, after the order of the holy priesthood.
On the second of August, "the Western Monitor, printed at Fayette, Missouri, edited by Weston F. Birch, published the proceedings of the mob, as follows:
MORMONISM!
At a meeting of the citizens of Jackson Co., Missouri, called for the purpose of adopting measures to rid themselves of the sect of fanatics, called Mormons, held at Independence on the 20th day of July, 1833; which meeting was composed of gentlemen from every part of the county, there being present between four and five hundred persons.
The meeting was organized by calling Colonel Richard Simpson to the chair, and appointing James H. Flournoy and Col. Samuel D. Lucas, Secretaries. It was resolved that a committee of seven be appointed to report an address to the public, in relation to the object of this meeting; and the chair named the following gentleman, to wit: Russell Hicks Esq., Robert Johnson, Henry Chiles Esq., Colonel James Hambright, Thomas Hudspeth, Joel F. Chiles, and James M. Hunter. The meeting then adjourned; and convened again, when Robert Johnson, the chairman of said committee, submitted for the consideration of the meeting, the following address, &c.:
This meeting, professing to act not from the excitement of the moment, but under a deep and abiding conviction, that the occasion is one that calls for cool deliberation, as well as energetic action, deem it proper to lay before the public an expose of our peculiar situation, in regard to this singular sect of pretended christians, and a solemn declaration of our unalterable determination to amend it.
The evil is one that no one could have foreseen, and is therefore unprovided for by the laws, and the delays incident to legislation, would put the mischief beyond remedy.
But little more than two years ago, some two or three of this people made their appearance in the Upper Missouri, and they now number some twelve hundred souls in this county; and each successive autumn and spring pours forth its swarm among us, with a gradual falling of the character of those who compose them; until it seems that those communities from which they come, were flooding us with the very dregs of their composition. Elevated as they mostly
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