Haun's Mill massacre was merely a tragic episode; a huge tragedy in itself, it is true, such as civilized times scarcely ever present, yet merely an episode of this strange religious iliad of America and the nineteenth century.
The capital of Mormondom was now the city of Far West, in Missouri.
There was Joseph the prophet. There was Brigham Young—his St. Peter—who by this time fairly held the keys of the latter-day kingdom. There were the apostles. There were two armies marshaled—the army of the Lord and the army of Satan. And these were veritable hosts, of flesh and blood, equipped and marshaled in a religious crusade—not merely spiritual powers contending.
"On the 4th of July, 1838," writes Apostle Parley Pratt, "thousands of the citizens who belonged to the church of the saints assembled at the city of Far West, the county seat of Caldwell, in order to celebrate our nation's birth.
"We erected a tall standard, on which was hoisted our national colors, the stars and stripes, and the bold eagle of American liberty. Under its waving folds we laid the corner-stone of a temple of God, and dedicated the land and ourselves and families to him who had preserved us in all our troubles.
"An address was then delivered by Sidney Rigdon, in which was portrayed in lively colors the oppression which we had suffered at the hands of our enemies.
"We then and there declared our constitutional rights as American citizens, and manifested our determination to resist, with our utmost endeavors, from that time forth, all oppression, and to maintain our rights and freedom, according to the holy principles of liberty as guaranteed to every person by the constitution and laws of our country.
"This declaration was received with shouts of hosanna to God and the Lamb, and with many long cheers by the assembled thousands, who were determined to yield their rights no more unless compelled by superior power."
Very proper, too were such resolutions of these sons and daughters of sires and mothers who were among the pilgrim founders of this nation, and among the heroes and heroines of the Revolution.
But Missouri could not endure this temple-building to the God of Israel, nor these mighty shouts of hosanna to his name; while the all-prevailing faith of the sisters brought more of the angels down from the New Jerusalem than earth just then was prepared to receive. In popular words, this formidable gathering of a modern Israel and this city building within its borders loomed up to Missouri as the rising of a Mormon empire.