| 83 rejoicing here in the enjoyment of our privileges. We feel that we know that the work which the Lord himself has so marvelously commenced among us will go firmly forward until it will finally triumph and we and it be owned of Jesus when he comes. ED." -The Ensign of Liberty vol. 1, pp. 54-57.
Elder McLellin had visited Missouri and succeeded in interesting Elder David Whitmer and others in the movement, and ordained them high priests and David Whitmer President of the Church. We give here the account as written by William E. McLellin and published in The Ensign of Liberty for August, 1849:-
"OUR TOUR WEST IN 1847.
"When I published the third number of this paper, I did not then deem it wisdom to publish the particulars of the conference held in Far West, on the seventh and eighth days of September, with some of the original 'witnesses' of the Book of Mormon. But as circumstances have transpired since, and as matters now stand, we believe it to be our duty to present to our readers a history of that important conference. But let us premise a little here. It will be remembered that in December, 1846, I wrote a long letter to President David Whitmer. And in March and April following, I published the first and second numbers of this paper, and immediately sent them to him and his friends. When I parted with O. Cowdery the last of July, in Wisconsin, he immediately wrote to David and acquainted him with the fact that I was on my way to make him a visit. This letter he had received some days before I arrived; hence the whole matter of the stand we had taken in Kirtland was well known and well understood by those men, many weeks and months before I visited them. I have made the above remarks because I have been charged with waking up the prophet in his duty, and because some have thought that those men acted without mature deliberation.
"On the 4th of September, about sunset, I arrived in Richmond, Ray County, Missouri, at the residence of David Whitmer. We spent until midnight hour in familiar converse
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