| 580 and giving their names,-about sixty persons arose.
Conference closed by the choir singing Hymn 284 and prayer by Bro. B. Young.
Conference adjourned sine die.
Although conference commenced under discouraging circumstances owing to the inclemency of the weather, yet a vast number of brethren and visitors from abroad were present and on Saturday and Sunday, the weather having become favorable, the congregation was immense. The graatest [greatest] unanimity prevailed; business was conducted with the most perfect harmony and good feelings; and the assembly dispersed with new confidence in the great work of the Last Days.
Joseph Smith, Pres't.
Elias Smith}
Gustavus Hills.} Clerks.
From the St. Louis Atlas.
The Mormons.
An intelligent friend, who called upon us this morning, had just returned from a visit to Nauvoo and the Mormons. He has a whole skin-showing not a single lesion of the cuticle-neither scratch nor bite, nor any other mark of tooth or nail. He believes the mormons are not anthropophad [anthropoid ?], whose heads grow beneath their shoulders but men like other men-with the exception that the folly incident to human nature, runs in one vein through them, instead of in several, as through the most of us. He believes-just as we do-that they have been grossly misunderstood and shamefully libeled, of late perhaps as much by a correspondent of the Journal of Commerce (whom the respectable editors of that paper ought to look after) as from any other source.
The present population between eight and nine thusand [thousand], and of course the largest town in Illinois. The people are very enterprizing [enterprising], industrious and thrifty. They are at least quite as honest as the rest of us in this part of the world and probably in any other. Some peculiarities they have no doubt. Their religion is a peculiar one; that is neither Bhoodism [Buddhism] nor Mahometanism nor Judaism, nor Christiany [Christianity]-but it is a faith which they say encourages no vice, nor immorality, nor departure from established laws and usages; neither polygamy, nor promiscuous intercourse, nor community of property. One peculiarity of life is observable among them, and whether traceable to their religion or to some other cause, will not, we suppose, be quarreled with very generally. Ardent spirits as a drink are not in use among them; and the sale of spirits except as a medicine is forbidden by law. Any member of the church who presumes in any place to vend spirituous liquor is first admonished: and upon persistency in his offence [offense] expelled from the church. Tobacco also, is a weed which they seem almost universally to despise. We don't know but that the Mormons ought to be extirpated for refusing to drink whisky and chew tobacco;. but we hope the question will not be decided against them hastily; nor until their judges have slept off the fumes of their own liquor and cigars.
Among the public buildings, projected and in a state of forwardness at Nauvoo, is an immense temple to be constructed of hewn stone and to have an elevation of seventy feet. Its other dimensions may be inferred from its height. A splendid hotel, one hundred feet long, built also of stone is going up,-Scores of mechanics and laborers are busy as bees about them; and as they are all influenced by a public spirit unknown to the most of our communities, they do more work and bring more to pass than people do elsewhere.
How long the mormons will hold together and exhibit their present aspect, it is not for us to say. At this moment, they present the appearance of an enterprising, industrious, sober and thrifty population-such a population indeed as, in the respects just mentioned, have no rivals east, and, we rather guess not even west of the Mississippi.
We copy the following from the Edinburgh Observer of July 16th.
In a letter from Navalcarnero, in Spain, we find the following account of a singular phenomenon, which had occurred there:-"About three o'clock in the afternoon of Saturday last, the heat began to be insupportable, and continues increasing until past four, when a horrible tempest arose, accompanied by a shower of stones, which fell with great violence. The country is now reduced to one scene of desolation; nothing is to be heard but sighs and lamentations.- This shower lasted for two hours, at the expiration of which time the country around was thickly covered, and had the appearance of being buried in snow. All
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