--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Smith, Jesse N. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 3 number: 6 published: 1900-04 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Jesse N. Smith, "Memories of the Past—Nauvoo," *Improvement Era* 3, no. 6 (April 1900): 424–425.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera36unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera36unse start_page: 424 end_page: 425 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1900-04) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera36unse publication_year: 1900 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1900, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Memories of the Past—Nauvoo 424 IMPROVEMENT ERA. and mingle with Ellen Emma and our people?' I asked. She replied, 'Not yet; the Lord will open a way during your life time, by which I can be admitted to that class of people, for I believe as they do, and wish to be one of them." "Thus ended the vision and also the dream which brought peace, joy and comfort to our home in those days of bereavement, trial and distress. Now, Walter, the young lady was your grandma's niece, through whom your grandma received the Gospel, and she was laid away just as your Aunt Elenor described her. May God grant you a confirming testimony of the foregoing, is the prayer of your grandsire, "Samuel L. Adams" MEMORIES OF THE PAST—REFLECTIONS ON THE FALL OF NAUVOO. BY HON. JESSE N. SMITH. Some years ago, when crossing the Atlantic, the writer met with an incident which awakened what to him were interesting reflections. The ocean voyage had produced the usual efl^ect upon the passengers; being brought face to face with the grand and aweinspiring ocean, all were more or less lifted out of the narrow grooves of creed and party. Each must feel his insignificance, and also his dependence upon the care and providence of the great Creator. We had on board a young Illinoisan who seemed to conceal his identity, while his avowed object in going abroad was to help to free Ireland from her connection with the government of Great Britain. He was in short a Fenian.Thoughts of Robert Emmett immediately occurred to me, as this man was handsome and wellspoken. One morning he singled me out on the deck and asked the favor of some conversation. Withdrawing a little apart he said: "How do you 'Mormons' feel toward us Illinoisans for driving you out of our state in 1846?" Though taken somewhat by surprise, the question opened a subject of great interest to me. I COLLECTION OF ANECDOTES. . 425 replied that I could not undertake to answer for the "Mormon" people, but speaking for myself, I felt that a grievous wrong was committed, a wrong so great that I could not describe its scope or consequences, a wrong for which no reparation had ever been proposed or attemped, so great as to be beyond the power of man to condone or palliate, and must therefore be left in the hands of God. He distinctly disclaimed all responsibility in the matter, urging for himself that at that time he was so young that he could have no lot nor part in such proceedings, and making the same claim for those then in power throughout the state, and maintaining the Ingersoll doctrine, that the children are not responsibe for the sins of their fathers: this, so far as the moral responsibility was concerned. But he did not deny that the state was responsible to the "Mormons" for pecuniary damages. The conversation ended, but in reflecting upon the subject, I could see no sufficient reason for discarding the scriptural doctrine that God will remember the sins of the Fathers against the children unto the third and fourth generations of them that hate him. Of one thing I was fully assured, the good actions of parents descend upon their children like a benediction. Mr. Gushing had just negotiated the Alabama Claims Treaty by which Great Britain paid to citizens of the United States, fifteen millions of dollars in damages done to merchants and others who lost ships on the high seas through the depredations of the Alabama and other confederate cruisers. But Mr. Gushing was pleading the cause of the rich who no doubt furnished money to help the case along. Whoever interested himself for the poor and the unpopular? The mind reverts to the good Savior of the world, who raised up from death the son of the widow of Nain and sent him home to help his mother. But who of the great and noble of earth have interested themselves for the suffering Latterday Saints? One only, so far as I call to mind, the manly, the noble Thomas L. Kane, whose description of the exodus from Nauvoo will remain a lasting monument to his memory. Where were the other great men, statesmen and philanthropists? The tender-hearted Lincoln who lived in Springfield, Illinois, in the immediate neighborhood where Brockman's mob forces were mus-