NAUVOO LEGION, July 25, 1843.
No. 406. This certificate will be received by the Nauvoo Legion, as one dollar in payment of debts due the Legion, and redeemable by the Paymaster-General on demand, with any moneys in the treasury.
WILSON LAW, Major General, JOSEPH SMITH, Lieutenant-General, JOHN S. FULLMER, Paymaster-General.
Being sick, I lay on my bed in the middle of the room: visited by Dr. Willard Richards.
Elder Noah Rogers administered to Sister Webster at Farmington, Connecticut, who had been unable to walk for several years past.
Wednesday, 26.—Sister Webster arose from her bed this morning and walked.
I copy from the Boston Bee:
Prospective Enlargement of Mormonism—Missouri Rapped.
Sir,—In my last I touched upon the vested rights of the city of the Saints, as they appear upon the face of the charter; and it may be proper hereafter to go into the merits of that document, for I hold the maxim good that the "Union is interested in the Union;" but at the present time I have another subject on the tapis, which more immediately concerns the wise and honest portions of the American people. I reason from facts, no matter who may cry, "hush!" as to "Mormonism" and the "disgrace" which the State of Missouri inherits from her barbarous treatment and unlawful extermination of the Mormon people.
The great day has already been ushered in, and the voice of the Mormon is not only heard setting forth his own rights and preaching the Gospel of the Son of God in power and demonstration incontrovertible from revelation, in every city and hamlet in our wide-spread American Free States; but other realms and kingdoms hear the same tidings; even the Indians, Australia, Pacific Islands, Great Britain, Ireland, Germany and the Holy Land, where God Himself once spoke, have heard a Mormon; and all this in the short space of twelve or fourteen years; yea, and measures have been taken that Russia may hear the "Watchman cry."
Now, sir, "what has been done can be done." I shall not be surprised if the Mormons undertake to cope with the world. Virtue and truth are twin sisters of such winning charms, that honest men of every nation, kindred and tongue will fall in love with them; and what hinders the Mormons, with the Bible in one hand and humanity in the other, from Mormonizing all honest men? Nothing. The meaning of "Mormon," the Prophet Joe says, is "More good;" and no matter where it is the Mormons will have it; and if they cannot obtain it by exertion in the world, they will merit it by faith and prayer from the "old promise" of "ask and ye shall receive."
But do not think that I, even I, have been Mormonized by what I write for I say nay; though I am willing to admit—and all men of sense will do the same—the more light, the more truth; the more truth, the more love; the more love, the more virtue; the more virtue, the more peace; the more peace, the more heaven—what everybody wants. The Mormons believe rather too much for me. I can't come it.
Another word on Missouri. When her constitution was framed, they commenced the preamble as follows: "We, the people of Missouri, &c., by our representatives in convention assembled at St. Louis on Saturday, the 12th day of June, 1820, do mutually agree to establish a free and independent Republic," &c. Independent Republic! Well, some of the subsequent acts prove the truth of it, and as the broad folds of the constitution often conceal more than meets the eye: notwithstanding it is the aegis of the people to keep lawmakers and lawbreakers within and without bonds, let us quote from the 13th article of the aforesaid constitution, the 3rd paragraph: "That the people have a right peaceably to assemble for their common good, and to apply to those vested with the powers of government for redress of grievances; and that their right to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state cannot be questioned." This otherwise right of gun-fence was made, as I have earned, for breachy Indians, but was used by Governor Boggs as a sine quo non, pointed with steel and burning with brimstone, to exterminate the Mormons. Truly we may ask, what is right and what is law contrary to the constitution? The Legislature of Missouri acknowledged the exterminating order of Boggs as constitutional, and appropriated more than $200,000 to pay the drivers and robbers, and I may as well say, mobbers of the Mormons, for services rendered the State in 1838. O Gladius! O Crumena! Viator.
Shower of rain at noon.
Thursday, 27.—I drove through the city with Father Morley in my carriage.
Movements of Brigham Young, et al.
The Adelaide run aground on the sand bar. Elders Brigham Young, Wilford Woodruff and George A. Smith were set ashore and each took coach for Pittsburg, where they arrived at six o'clock: went to the Temperance Hall, and unobserved heard Elder John E. Page preach against the sects. Here they met with Elders Heber C. Kimball and Orson Pratt.