The Prophet's Review of the Wrongs of the Saints.
We have been driven time after time, and that without cause; and smitten again and again, and that without provocation; until we have proved the world with kindness, and the world has proved us, that we have no designs against any man or set of men, that we injure no man, that we are peaceable with all men, minding our own business, and our business only. We have suffered our rights and our liberties to be taken from us; we have not avenged ourselves of those wrongs; we have appealed to magistrates, to sheriffs, to judges, to government and to the President of the United States, all in vain; yet we have yielded peaceably to all these things. We have not complained at the Great God, we murmured not, but peaceably left all, and retired into the back country, in the broad and wild prairies, in the barren and desolate plains, and there commenced anew; we made the desolate places to bud and blossom as the rose; and now the fiend-like race is disposed to give us no rest. Their father the devil, is hourly calling upon them to be up and doing, and they, like willing and obedient children, need not the second admonition; but in the name of Jesus Christ the Son of the living God, we will endure it no longer, if the great God will arm us with courage, with strength and with power, to resist them in their persecutions. We will not act on the offensive, but always on the defensive; our rights and our liberties shall not be taken from us, and we peaceably submit to it, as we have done heretofore, but we will avenge ourselves of our enemies, inasmuch as they will not let us alone.
Site for a City Selected.
But to return again to our subject. We found the place for the city, and the brethren were instructed to gather immediately into it, and soon they should be organized according to the laws of God. A more particular history of this city may be expected hereafter, perhaps at its organization and dedication. We found a new route home, saving, I should think, three or four miles. We arrived at Far West about the close of day.
The High Priests met at Brother Pea's at Far West, and received Levi Richards into their quorum.
Rumors of Mobs Gathering.
Sunday, 2.—The First Presidency attended meeting as usual in the morning. I tarried at home in the evening to examine the Church records, and spent a part of the time in company with a gentleman from Livingston county, who had become considerably excited, on account of a large collection of people, as he said, to take Joseph Smith, Jun., and Lyman Wight, for going to one Adam Black's in Daviess county; and as the said President Smith and Colonel Wight had resisted the officer who had endeavored to take them, accordingly these men are assembling to take them—as they say. They are collecting from every part of the country, to Daviess county. Report says that they are collecting from eleven counties, to help take two men who had never resisted the law or officer, nor had they thought of doing so, and this their enemies knew at the same time, or many of them at least knew it. This looks a little too much like mobocracy, it foretells some evil intentions. The whole of upper Missouri is in an uproar and confusion.
An Appeal to Gen. Atchison.
This evening I sent for General Atchison, of Liberty, Clay county, who is the major general of this division—to come and counsel with us, and to see if we could not put a stop to this collection of people, and to put a stop to hostilities in Daviess county. I also sent a letter to Judge King containing a petition for him to assist in putting down and scattering the mob collecting in Daviess county.
Monday, 3.—Nothing of importance occurred today. Reports come in concerning the collection of a mob in Daviess county, which has been collecting ever since the election in Daviess county, on the sixth of August last. I was at home most of the day.