| 874 a discourse was delivered by the president relative to changing the ordinances, &c. Adjourned to meet again at seven o'clock P. M. Benediction by Elder W. Burton. During the intermission six were added to the church by baptism.
Met agreeable to adjournment: opened by singing, and prayer by Elder Wm. Burton.-Those that were baptized were confirmed by Elders Hickey and Burton. Some remarks were made by Elder D. Hickey, and many others of the elders spoke, and also the brothers and sisters: truly the spirit of the Lord was manifest.
Moved that the conference adjourn until the last Saturday and Sunday in June next, to meet in Oakland Town, Oakland co., Mich., four miles north of Rochester. Benediction by the president.
DAVID EVANS, Pres't.
WILLIAM BURTON, Clerk.
TIMES AND SEASONS.
CITY OF NAUVOO,
APRIL 15, 1845.
CRIME AND CALAMITY.
Since the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has revived for the gathering of Israel, there has not a season ushered in the tokens of the "time of the end" so visibly to the eyes of a wondering world, as this. The crimes of every description, almost go beyond the bounds of belief; the papers are filled with affrays, duels, murders, thefts, and many other outrages upon liberty, law, life and property: "blood toucheth blood."
And as our paper is delayed a little beyond the day of publication, we are enabled to say that calamity has visited many parts of the country, thus far in this month, with the vengeance that seems to whisper: "shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?" Our last mails have brought us the account of a great fire in Pittsburgh, which has destroyed some ten or twelve hundred houses, with nearly as many millions worth of property. Also a fire in Milwaukie [Milwaukee] which consumed near one hundred thousand dollars worth of property. In fact we might add to the list some fifteen or twenty others, which have characterised [characterized] April as a month of vexation, as well as a season to bud the glories of summer.
None of the visitations, however, which have fallen suddenly upon this generation, have touched the sympathies with a keener sensibility than the wreck of the steamer Swallow, in the Hudson river, near Athens, N. Y., on the 8th inst. Out of some two hundred and fifty or three hundred passengers, about fifty or sixty were landed in eternity under circumstances which ought to warn the living to beware how they trust their lives in the hands of men!
It is too evident to be concealed, that God is vexing this nation. As testimony on this head read the following:-
THE CROSS OF OUR SAVIOR.
Philadelphia at the present moment, says the Philadelphia Citizen Soldier, is like a powder barrel with alighted candle stuck in the center [center]. Every moment the candle burns nearer to the powder, inch by inch, and fragment by fragment is consumed. Every instant an awful explosion is threatened, and as spark after spark falls on the edges of the barrel, considerable anxiety is manifested in the question, "will not the next spark fall into the powder itself?" NATIVISM is the lighted candle, burning in the powder-keg of the Quaker city. It has been placed there by hands red with blood; it has been fanned by the breath of traitors and demagogues; and now the sparks begin to fall around the edge of the keg. Beware of the moment when the sparks fall into the powder! Beware the hour when intolerance and bigotry, foul-mouthed and red-handed, shall have done their work of treason! Beware the day when License is let loose again in the streets of Philadelphia; when Riot applies the torch in the Church of God; when Murder shoots the officers of the law and buries its own dead in the American flag!
As an instance of the peculiar state of feeling which prevails in Philadelphia at the present time, we will relate an incident. On Tuesday, the 18th ult., when the Native procession was passing, an idle lad about our office made a rude cross (†) with a printer's roller on a sheet of printing paper, and hung it out the window.
It had not hung there five minutes, when a scene was enacted which would have done honor to the Turks of Constantinople, the Rioters of Kensington, or the Assassins of Southwark. A mob surrounded our office, hooting like incarnate fiends as they pointed to the cross, and clamoring madly for the destruction of the building in front of which it hung! And this, because an Emblem of the Death and Redemption of the LORD JESUS was hung from the window!
The CROSS, which symbols universal love, became the object of the hatred of a mob, who are ripe for any deed of blood, any act of outrage!
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