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Source: Church History Vol. 1 Chapter 18 Page: 508 (~1834)

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508 Jackson County has set the law at defiance, and put all hopes of criminal prosecution, against them, in that vicinage, beyond the reach of judge and jury, and left us but a distant expectation of civil remuneration for the great amount of damage we have sustained, necessity compels us to complain to the world. And if our case and calamity are not sufficient to excite the commiseration of the humane, and open the hearts of the generous, and fire the spirits of the patriotic, then has sympathy lost herself in the wilderness, and justice fled from power; then has the dignity of the ermine shrunk at the gigantic front of a mob, and the sacred mantle of freedom been caught up to heaven where the weary are at rest and the wicked cannot come.

"To be obedient to the commandments of our Lord and Savior, some of the heads of the church commenced purchasing lands in the western boundaries of the State of Missouri, according to the revelation of God, for the city of Zion; in doing which no law was evaded, no rights infringed, nor no principle of religion neglected, but the laudable foundation of a glorious work begun, for the salvation of mankind, in the last days, agreeable to our faith, and according to the promises in the sacred Scriptures of God,

"We verily believed, knowing that the National and State Constitutions, and the statute laws of the land, and the commandments of the Lord, allowed all men to worship as they pleased, that we should be protected, not only by all the law of a free republic, but by every republican throughout the realms of freedom.

"The holy prophets had declared, 'that it should come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house should be established in the top of the mountains, and should be exalted above the hills, and all nations should flow unto it. And many people should go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob: and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.' And again it was said by Joel, seemingly to strengthen the faith of the Latter Day Saints in the above, 'that whosoever should call on the

(page 508)

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