"And with one heart and with one mind, gather up your riches that ye may purchase an inheritance which shall hereafter be appointed unto you,
"And it shall be called the New Jerusalem, a land of peace, a city of refuge, a place of safety for the Saints of the Most High God;
"And the glory of the Lord shall be there, and the terror of the
Lord also shall be there, insomuch that the wicked will not come
unto it, and it shall be called Zion.
"And it shall come to pass, among the wicked, that every man that
will not take his sword against his neighbor, must needs flee unto
Zion for safety.
"And there shall be gathered unto it out of every nation under
heaven; and it shall be the only people that shall not be at war
one with another.
"And it shall be said among the wicked, let us not go up to battle
against Zion, for the inhabitants of Zion are terrible; wherefore
we cannot stand.
"And it shall come to pass that the righteous shall be gathered
out from among all nations, and shall come to Zion, singing with
songs of everlasting joy."
With this glorious object in view, this sublime motive firing their souls and filling their hearts with holy zeal, the Saints, in the summer of 1831, had commenced gathering upon the land of Zion—Jackson County, Missouri, the chosen site of the great city and temple of God. Their purpose, to fulfil prophecy, to found the modern Zion, New Jerusalem, capital city of the kingdom of God. A counterpart of the Zion of Enoch, sanctified of old and taken into the heavens, to return in latter times as a leaven of righteousness, to leaven this lump of clay, the mother earth of our mortality, and make it like unto itself, and in due time a glorified planet, purified, redeemed, and from sin forever free.
To prepare the world for that supreme hour "when the Lord shall bring again Zion," was and is the mission of the Saints of latter days. And this that the scripture might be fulfilled, which says:
"The Lord hath brought down Zion from above.