| 772 Of this sad event we will allow their mother to speak:-
"Their bodies were attended home by only two persons, save those that went from this place. These were Brother Willard Richards and a Mr. Hamilton; Brother John Taylor having been shot in prison, and nearly killed, he could not be moved until some time afterwards.
"After the corpses were washed and dressed in their burial clothes, we were allowed to see them. I had for a long time braced every nerve, roused every energy of my soul, and called upon God to strengthen me; but when I entered the room, and saw my murdered sons extended both at once before my eyes, and heard the sobs and groans of my family, and the cries of 'Father! Husband! Brothers!' from the lips of their wives, children, brothers, and sisters, it was too much. I sank back, crying to the Lord, in the agony of my soul, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken this family!'
"A voice replied, 'I have taken them to myself, that they might have rest.'
"Emma was carried back to her room almost in a state of insensibility.
"Her oldest son approached the corpse, and dropped upon his knees, and laying his cheek against his father's, and kissing him, exclaimed, 'Oh, my father, my father!'
"As for myself, I was swallowed up in the depth of my afflictions; and though my soul was filled with horror past imagination, yet I was dumb, until I arose again to contemplate the spectacle before me. Oh! at that moment how my mind flew through every scene of sorrow and distress which we had passed together, in which they had shown the innocence and sympathy which filled their guileless hearts!
"As I looked upon their peaceful, smiling countenances, I seemed almost to hear them say,-'Mother, weep not for us, we have overcome the world by love; we carried to them the gospel, that their souls might be saved; they slew us for our testimony, and thus placed us beyond their power; their ascendancy is for a moment, ours is an eternal triumph.' . . .
"I left the scene and returned to my room, to ponder upon the calamities of my family. Soon after this, Samuel said,
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