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Sidney Gilbert is also enjoined to obtain a licence that he may send goods unto the people,' so as to provide for the preaching of the gospel unto those who sit in darkness.' William Phelps is to be established as a printer unto the church;' 'and, lo!' says the revelation, if the world receiveth his writings, let him obtain whatsoever he can obtain in righteousness, for the good of the Saints. And let my servant, Oliver Cowdery, assist him . . to copy, and to correct, and select, that all things may be right before me, as it shall be proved by the spirit through him.' And concerning the gathering, it is said: Let the bishop and the agent make preparations for those families which have been commanded to come to this land, as soon as possible, and plant them in their inheritance.'

On the first Sunday after his arrival, Joseph preached in the wilderness to a miscellaneous crowd of Indians, squatters, and a 'respectable company of negroes.' He made a few converts, and soon had another revelation, to the effect chiefly, that Martin Harris should be an example to the church in laying his moneys before the bishops of the church;' the said moneys being required to purchase land for a storehouse, and also for the house of the printing. On the 3d of August, after a sojourn of about three weeks, the spot for the temple was solemnly laid out and dedicated; and Joseph, some days afterwards, having completed all his arrangements, established a bishop, and acquired, as he conceived, a firm footing for his sect in Jackson County, prepared to return into Ohio, to look after his affairs at Kirtland. On the homeward journey, nothing of consequence occurred, except that once Brother Phelps, in open vision, by daylight, saw the Destroyer (otherwise called the Devil) ride upon the waters' of a river near which the party was encamped. 'Others,' says Joseph, heard the noise, but saw not the vision.' The devil, however, was quite harmless; and after a journey of twenty-four days, the pilgrims all arrived at Kirtland.

It is a peculiarity of our prophet, that he always had the keenest eye to business. On his return to Kirtland, by the aid of others, members of the church, he established a mill, a store, and a bank. Of the latter, he appointed himself president, and intrusted Sidney Rigdon with the office of cashier. It was the object of himself and of the sect to stay in Kirtland and make money for the next five years; until, in short, the wilderness should be cleared, and the temple built in Zion.

Meanwhile, Joseph lost no opportunity of propagating his religion, and of planting branches of his church wherever he could find a soil adapted to his doctrines. He travelled about preaching in various parts of the United States, making converts with great rapidity. He had two great elements of persuasion in his favoursufficient novelty, and unconquerable perseverance. His doctrine was both old and new. It had something of the old that was calculated to attract such as would have been repelled by a creed

altogether new, and it had sufficient novelty to strike the attention and inflame the imagination of many whose minds would have been totally uninfluenced by current and established dogmas, however powerfully preached. Basing his faith upon isolated passages of the Bible; claiming direct inspiration from Heaven; promising possession of the earth, and limiting eternal blessings, to all true believers; and, moreover, announcing his mission with a courage and audacity that despised difficulty and danger; it is not surprising that ignorant and credulous people should everywhere have listened to him, and reverently credited his extravagant pretensions. Nevertheless, his success as a propagandist was not without some drawbacks. Never, perhaps, until this enlightened nineteenth century, was it the lot of a prophet to be tarred and feathered! Such, however, was the ridiculous martyrdom which Mohammed Smith was called upon to suffer at the hands of lawless men. One night, in the month of March 1832, 'a mob of Methodists, Baptists, Campbellites,' and other miscellaneous zealots, broke into his peaceable dwelling-house, and dragging him from the wife of his bosom, stripped him naked, and in the way just indicated, most despitefully maltreated him. Under the bleak midnight sky, they carried him into a meadow a little distance from the house, and there, with curses and wild uproar, anointed his sacred person with that dark impurity which Falstaff mentions as having a tendency to defile; and then rolling him well in feathers, set him at liberty-a spectacle not inappropriate for a scarecrow! Sidney Rigdon was similarly handled, and rendered temporarily crazy by the treatment. As to the prophet, it took the whole night for his friends to cleanse his polluted skin. Yet, the next day being the Sabbath, with his 'flesh all scarified and defaced,' he preached to the congregation as usual, and in the afternoon of the same day baptised three individuals. Thus, under the absurdest persecution, the church prospers and increases, and Prophet Joseph loses nothing of his natural audacity, nor abates one whit in his confident self-assertion.

However, calling to mind the scriptural injunction: 'If they persecute you in one city, flee into another,' Joseph seems to have thought that it would not be amiss to absent himself a little from the scene of so bathotic a disaster. Accordingly, he started on the 2d of April, with a small company of adherents, for the settlement in Missouri, designing, as he said, to fulfil the revelation. Some of his inhuman persecutors dogged his steps as far as Louisville, taunting and harassing him by the way; but getting protection from the captain of a steam-boat, he arrived in safety at Independence on the 26th. Here he found the Saints going ahead with great rapidity. In obedience to a revelation which he had sent them, a printing-press had been established, and the work of proselytising was advancing famously. A monthly periodical, called the Morning and Evening Star, was conducted by Mr Phelps, the printer to the church; and a weekly newspaper, devoted exclusively

to the interests of Mormonism, had been started under the title of the Upper Missouri Advertiser. The number of the disciples amounted to nearly 3000; while in Kirtland, including women and children, they had not yet exceeded 150. The new Zion was clearly thriving, and would soon be ready for the gathering of the brethren from other quarters. Being enthusiastically received by the congregation, and solemnly acknowledged as their prophet, seer, and president of the high-priesthood of the church,' Joseph, after a brief and pleasant sojourn, left the place in perfect confidence that all was going on prosperously.

Perhaps he ought to have remembered, that often when things are most prosperous in appearance, there is apt to be some latent mischief or misfortune in process of development. And, to speak truly, the manner in which the Saints behaved themselves in Zion, was anything but calculated to make friends among the Gentiles. They assumed an offensive superiority over their neighbours, and spoke rather too boldly of their determination to take possession of the whole state of Missouri, and to permit no one to live in it who did not conform themselves to the Mormon creed and discipline. Strange rumours also began to spread concerning their peculiarities of intercourse and ways of living. They were accused of communism, and not simply of a community of goods and chattels, but also of a community of wives. This charge appears to have been utterly unfounded, but it was not the less effective in arousing the indignation of the people of Independence and Missouri against the Mormons. A party was secretly formed, whose object was to expel them from the state. The printing-office of the Star was razed to the ground, and the types and presses confiscated. A Mormon bishop was tarred and feathered, and Editor Phelps had a narrow escape from a touch of the like treatment. Outrages of almost every description were committed by armed mobs upon the Mormons, till at length they saw no chance or likelihood of ever being left at peace; and the final result was, that having no other resource-the leaders agreed that, if time were given, the people should remove westward to some other situation.

Under circumstances of such peril and humiliation, the Saints, not unadvisedly, despatched Oliver Cowdery to Kirtland with a message to the prophet. Joseph Smith, as became his situation, proved himself not unfertile in resources. He decided that the Morning and Evening Star should be thenceforth published in Kirtland, and that another newspaper should be started to supply the place of the one lately printed in Missouri. He also resolved to apply to the governor of that state, and to demand justice for the outrages inflicted upon the sect. Anything that could be done to aid the brethren from a distance he was prompt and ready to undertake; but, under the circumstances, he did not deem it circumspect to venture personally into Zion. He sent his followers a prophet's blessing and a word of comfort; and then, in company

with Sidney Rigdon and another, made a journey into Canada, with the design of gaining converts.

Meanwhile, in reply to a petition which had been sent him by the Mormons, the governor of Missouri responded by a sensible and conciliatory letter. He alluded to the attack upon them as being illegal and unjustifiable, and recommended them to remain where they were, and to apply for redress to the ordinary tribunals of the country. Acting on the strength of this advice, the Mormons commenced actions against the ringleaders of the mob, engaging, by a fee of 1000 dollars, the best legal assistance to support their case. But on the 30th of October, the mob again rose in arms to expel them. Several houses of the Saints were sacked and partially demolished. The Mormons, in some instances, defended their possessions, and a regular battle ensued between them and their opponents. In this encounter, it happened that two of the latter were killed; and thenceforth the fray became so furious and alarming, that the militia was obliged to be called out to suppress it. The militia, however, being anti-Mormon to a man, took sides entirely against them, and the hapless Saints had no alternative except in flight. The women took alarm, and fled with their children across the Missouri river, where, being afterwards joined by their husbands, they all encamped in the open wilderness. They ultimately took refuge for the most part in Clay County, where they appear to have been received with some degree of kindness.

The public authorities of Missouri, and indeed all the principal people, except those of Jackson County, were exceedingly scandalised at these proceedings, and sympathised with the efforts of the Mormon leaders to obtain redress. The attorney-general of the state wrote to say, that if the Mormons desired to be re-established in their possessions, an adequate public force should be sent for their protection. He also advised them to remain in the state, and organise themselves into a regular company of militia, promising to supply them with arms at the public expense. About the same time a message arrived from the prophet, who had now returned to Kirtland, urging them to abide by their possessions, and not in any case to sell any land to which they had a legal title, but hold on until the Lord in his wisdom should open a way for their return.' Nevertheless, for present emergencies, he recommended them to purchase a tract of land in Clay County, and to tarry there awhile, abiding their time. He likewise communicated to them a revelation, by which they were commanded to importune the courts of justice to reinstate them in their possessions, and promised that, in case of failure, the Lord God himself would arise and come out of his hiding-place, and in his fury vex the nation.'

The Mormons, however, were never more restored to their beloved Zion. They remained for upwards of four years in Clay County. The land on which they settled was mostly uncleared,

but being an industrious and persevering people, they laid out farms, erected mills and stores, and carried on their business as successfully as in their previous location. But here also the suspicions and ill-feeling of the people were soon aroused against them, and were eventually the cause of their expulsion from the whole state of Missouri. The bearing of the Mormons towards the slavery question, the calumny about their community of wives, their loud pretensions of superior holiness, their repeated declarations that Missouri had been assigned to their possession by divine command, and the quarrels that were constantly resulting, brought about the same kind of misunderstandings and collisions which they had experienced in Jackson County.

At this juncture-namely, on the 5th of May 1834-Joseph Smith, the prophet, resolved to visit his persecuted church, and try what he could do to put the affairs of his scattered and dispirited disciples into order. He brought with him an organised company of 100 persons, mostly young men, and nearly all priests, deacons, teachers, and officers of the church. Twenty of them formed the body-guard of the prophet, his brother, Hyrum Smith, being captain, and another brother, George Smith, his armourbearer. On the way, he was intercepted by the people of Jackson County, one of the leaders of whom, named Campbell, swore that the eagles and turkey-buzzards should eat his flesh, if he did not, before two days, fix Joe Smith and his army so that their skins should not hold shucks.' Joseph, who relates the story, says, however, that Campbell and his men went to the ferry, and undertook to cross the Missouri river after dusk; but the angel of God saw fit to sink the boat about the middle of the river, and seven out of the twelve that attempted to cross were drowned. Thus suddenly and justly,' he adds, 'they went to their own place by water. Campbell was among the missing. He floated down the river some four or five miles, and lodged upon a pile of drift-wood, where the eagles, buzzards, ravens, crows, and wild animals, ate his flesh from his bones, to fulfil his own words, and left him a horrible-looking skeleton of God's vengeance, which was discovered about three weeks afterwards by one Mr Purtle.' But, though sustaining no material damage from the vindictive Mr Campbell, Joseph lost thirteen of his band by the ravages of cholera. Marching onwards, however, he arrived in Clay County on the 2d of July; and in the course of his brief stay of seven days, succeeded in establishing the Saints in their new settlement, on a better footing than he found them occupying on his arrival.

The history of the sect for the next three years is one of strife and contention with their enemies in Missouri. The numbers of the Mormons increased with the numbers of their opponents; and the warfare raged so bitterly, that the whole people of the state were ranged either on one side or the other. At length, in the autumn of 1837, Joseph's bank at Kirtland suddenly stopped