The Latter-Day Prophet: History of Joseph Smith Written for Young People

by George Q. Cannon

Joseph at this time prophesied that within five years the Saints should be out of the power of mobs and apostates. He did not live to see this fulfilled, but you know how true the prophecy was. By February of 1849, five years from the time that the Prophet uttered it, the body of the Church was in Salt Lake valley, one thousand miles from their old persecutors.

A special conference of the Church was held at Nauvoo, beginning the sixth of April, 1844. The seventh was Sunday and twenty thousand Saints gathered to hear the Prophet speak. Elder King Follett, a faithful man who had been in prison with Parley P. Pratt in Missouri, had died a few days before, and Joseph's mind was drawn to the eternal glory that this man and other faithful Saints will obtain. For three and a half hours, in power rested the Holy Ghost upon him and he spoke. His voice was like the voice of an angel, and the people sat motionless, almost breathless, listening to hear every word.

The Laws and Fosters could no longer hide their wickedness and they were publicly cut off the Church. Now began their lawless, murderous course. Before the week had passed a number of them were arrested and fined for the assault and resisting officers of the law. Joseph was determined that they should not deceive innocent Saints, and before they were cut off he laid open their wickedness in public, and their thirst for his blood grew stronger within them. William Law and others went to Carthage and swore to a complaint before the circuit court, charging the Prophet with polygamy and perjury.

Joseph heard that an order for his arrest was out, and so on the twenty-fifth of May, he went of his own free will to Carthage to give himself up. He obtained lawyers there and wished to have the case tried at once, but the other side succeeded in having it delayed until the next term of court. Joseph was left in the hands of a sheriff, who knowing the Prophet's honor let him go free. He learned from some of the apostates, who were not so bitter as others, that a plot had been formed to murder him that night at Carthage. Hyrum and others of his friends were with him, and when the mob was not expecting it, they left Carthage and went rapidly toward Nauvoo. Joseph rode his favorite horse, a beautiful animal which he called Joe Duncan. They reached home soon after dark by rapid riding.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

1844.

THE PLOT OF AN APOSTATE—THE PUBLICATION OF THE NAUVOO "EXPOSITOR"—DECLARED A NUISANCE AND ABATED AS SUCH—JOSEPH'S LAST PUBLIC SPEECH—HE AND HIS BROTHER HYRUM LEAVE NAUVOO—RETURN TO THE CITY—"I AM GOING LIKE A LAMB TO THE SLAUGHTER."

The mutterings of that storm of hatred, lies and murder changed to the storm itself when the Nauvoo Expositor came out on the seventh of June, 1844. It was a weekly newspaper printed by the Laws, Higbees and Fosters, and was filled with the apostate spirit. Joseph and Hyrum were the main objects of its lying attacks. It also urged that the charter of Nauvoo be withdrawn on account of the fraud and crimes which, it said, were practiced under it. On this same day Robert Foster came to the Prophet and asked to see him alone, saying he wished to come back into the Church. Joseph refused to see him without witnesses, and as they spoke he pointed to Foster's breast and said, "What have you concealed there?" Foster confessed it was his pistol, and after a few more words, left the house, promising to come back, but he never came. It was soon learned that he had wished to draw Joseph off alone and then murder him.

Three days after the Expositor came out, the city council met and decided that this paper was a public nuisance, and, as in ordinary cases, Marshal John P. Greene was directed to remove it. Taking a number of men with him as assistants, he quietly went to the office, took the press out of the building, broke it and pied the type. Joseph, as mayor of the city, made a proclamation telling why this action had been taken. It was simply self-protection. If the Nauvoo Expositor had gone on, sooner or later mobs would have come upon Nauvoo, and the city would have suffered the terrible fate of Far West.

The publishers hurried to Carthage and told their story. Constable David Bettis worth was sent to arrest Joseph and Hyrum Smith and the others who had been concerned in destroying the Expositor. Thomas Morrison, justice of the peace at Carthage, had issued a warrant and had directed the officers to bring the prisoners before him or some other justice of the peace within the county. Joseph and Hyrum asked that they be taken before a justice of the peace in Nauvoo, but the constable said, "I will be damned but I will carry you before Justice Morrison at Carthage." The brethren therefore obtained a writ of habeas corpus from the city court of Nauvoo and after being examined were set free.