History of Joseph Smith

(CONTINUED.)

April 1st 1834. This day at Brother Riders, in Chardon. The Court has not brought forward Hurlbert's trial yet, and we were engaged in issuing subpoenas for witnesses. My soul delighteth in the law of the Lord, for he forgiveth my sins, and will confound mine enemies. The Lord shall destroy him who has lifted his heel against me, even that wicked man, Doct. P. Hurlbert; he will deliver him to the fowls of heaven, and his bones shall be cast to the blasts of the wind, for he lifted his arm against the Almighty, therefore the Lord shall destroy him.

Wednesday the 2nd and Thursday the 3d, attended the Court. Hurlbert was on trial for threatening my life. Friday morning I returned home. And in the evening attended council of which the following are the minutes.

"Kirtland, April 4th 1834.

This evening a council of High Priests assembled at the house of President Joseph Smith, Jun., to reconsider the case of Brother George F. James. Pres. Joseph Smith Jun, presiding.

Brother George said that he had often promised to take up his cross and magnify his calling, but had failed, and had ought to have written to the President ere this time, and given him the information that his pecuniary affairs called his attention at home, which prevented his fulfilling the promise he made to president Joseph in going out to proclaim the gospel, and he sincerely asked pardon of the Lord, and of his brethren, and particularly of Brother Joseph. He also said he was willing to ask the forgiveness of this church. He said that relative to certain charges, which were that he "had not attended meetings," and had treated lightly some of the weak" &c.; that he had attended meetings, generally; and as for speaking or treating lightly any brother because of his weakness, was foreign from his mind, and was that which he had never done, nor could ever find such principles in his bosom. President Joseph said he had no hardness; he only wished brother George to consider this as a chastisement, and that the council were bound to notice his conduct heretofore; but now if Bro. George was willing to walk according to the new covenant, he should have his hand of fellowship. The council then expressed their satisfaction at Bro. George's confession.

Signed OLIVER COWDERY, Clerk.

Saturday, March 5th; I went to Chardon, as a witness for Father Johnson, and returned in the evening. Mr. Russell, the State's Attorney, for Portage county, called on me. He appeared in a gentlemanly manner, and treated me with great respect.

April 7th. Bishop Whitney, Elders Frederick G. Williams, Oliver Cowdery, Heber C. Kimball, and myself met in the council room, and bowed down before the Lord, and prayed that he would furnish the means to deliver the Firm from debt, that they might be set at liberty; also that I might prevail against the wicked man, Hurlbert, and that he might be put to shame.

The Presidency wrote Elder Orson Hyde, who yet remained in the State of New York, as follows:

Kirtland, April 7, 1834.

Dear Bro Orson:-

We received yours of the 31st ultimo, in due course of mail, and were much grieved on learning that you were not like to succeed according to our expectations. Myself, Brothers Newel, Frederic and Oliver, retired to the translating room, where prayer was wont to be made, and unbosomed our feelings before God, and cannot but exercise faith yet that you, in the miraculous providence of God will succeed in obtaining help. The fact is, unless we can obtain help, I myself cannot go to Zion, and if I do not go, it will be impossible to get my brethren in Kirtland, any of them, to go; and if we do not go, it is in vain for our eastern brethren to think of going up to better themselves by obtaining so goodly a land, (which now can be obtained for one dollar and a quarter per acre,) and stand against that wicked mob; for unless they do the will of God, God will not help them, and if God does not help them, all is vain.

Now the fact is, this is the head of the church, and the life of the body, and those able men, as members of the body, God has appointed to be hands to administer to the necessities of the body. Now if a man's hand refuses to administer to the necessities of his body, it must perish of hunger; and if the body perish, all the members perish with it; and if the head fails, the whole body is sickened, the heart faints, and the body dies, the spirit takes its exit, and the carcase [carcass] remains to be devoured by worms.

Now Brother Orson, if this church, which is assaying to be the church of Christ, will not

help us, when they can do it without sacrifice, with those blessings which God has bestowed upon them. I prophecy, I speak the truth, I lie not, God shall take away their talent and give it to those who have no talent, and shall prevent them from ever obtaining a place of refuge, or an inheritance upon the land of Zion: therefore they may tarry, for they might as well be overtaken where they are, as to incur the displeasure of God and fall under his wrath by the way side, as to fall into the hands of a merciless mob, where there is no God to deliver, as salt that has lost its savour [savor], and thenceforth good for nothing, but to be trodden under foot of men.

I therefore adjure you to beseech them, in the name of the Lord, by the Son of God, to lend us a helping hand; and if all this will not soften their hearts, to administer to our necessity for Zion's sake, turn your back upon them and return speedily to Kirtland, and the blood of Zion be upon their heads, even as upon the heads of her enemies, and let their recompence [recompense] be as the recompence [recompense] of her enemies, for thus shall it come to pass saith the Lord of Hosts, who has the cattle upon a thousand hills, who has put forth his Almighty hand to bring to pass his strange act; and what man shall put forth his hand to steady the ark of God or be found turning a deaf ear to the voice of his servant, God shall speak in due time, and all will be declared, Amen.

Your Brethren in the New Covenant,

JOSEPH SMITH, Jun,

F. G. WILLIAMS,

OLIVER COWDERY.

April 9th. After an impartial trial, the court decided that Doct. P. Hurlbut, be bound over under two hundred dollar bonds, to keep the peace for six months, and pay the cost, which amounted to near three hundred dollars, all of which was in answer to our prayers, for which I thank my Heavenly Father.

On the 10th, had a council of the United Order, in which it was agreed that the Order should be dissolved, and each one have his stewardship set off to him. The same day, the brethren in Clay county, Missouri, executed the following letters and petitions according to the revalation [revelation]:

Liberty, Clay co., Mo., April 10, 1834.

To the President of the United States of America:

We, the undersigned, your petitioners, citizens of the United States of America, and residents of the county of Clay, in the state of Mo., being members of the Church of Christ, reproachfully called Mormons, beg leave to refer the President to our former petition, dated in October last, and also to lay before him the accompanying hand-bill, dated Dec. 12th, 1833, with assurances that the said hand-bill exhibits but a faint sketch of the sufferings of your petitioners and their brethren up to the period of its publication.

The said hand-bill shews [shows], that at the time of the dispersion a number of our families fled into the new and unsettled county of Van Buren, but being unable to procure provisions in that county, through the winter, many of them were compelled to return to their homes in Jackson county or perish with hunger. But they had no sooner set foot upon the soil, which a few months before we had purchased of the United States, than they were again met by the citizens of Jackson county, and a renewal of savage barbarities inflicted upon these families, by beating with clubs and sticks, presenting knives and fire arms, and threatening with death, if they did not flee from the county-these inhuman [inhumane] assaults, upon a number of these families, were repeated at two or three different times through the past winter, till they were compelled at last to abandon their possessions in Jackson county, and flee with their mangled bodies into this county, here to mingle their tears and unite their supplications, with hundreds of their brethren, to our Heavenly Father, and the chief ruler of our nation.

Between one and two thousand of the people called Mormons, have been driven by force of arms from Jackson county, in this state, since the first of November last, being compelled to leave their highly cultivated fields, the great part of which had been bought of the United States, and all this on account of our belief in direct revelation from God, to the children of men, according to the Holy Scriptures. We know that such illegal violence has not been inflicted upon any sect or community of people by the citizens of the United States, since the declaration of independence.

That this is a religious persecution, is notorious throughout our county; for while the officers of the county both civil and military, were accomplices in these unparalleled outrages, engaged in the destruction of the printing office, dwelling houses, &c.; yet the records of the judicial tribunals of that county are not stained with a crime against our people. Our numbers being greatly inferior to the enemy, we were unable to stand up in self defence [defense]; and our lives, at this day, are contintinually [continually] threatened by that infuriated people, so that our personal safely forbids one of our number going into that county on business.

We beg leave to state that no impartial investigation into this criminal matter can be

made, because the offenders must be tried in the county where the offence [offense] was committed, and the inhabitants of the county, both magistrates and people were combined, with the exception of a few; justice cannot be expected. At this day your petitioners do not know of a solitary family belonging to our church, but what have been violently expelled from Jackson county by the inhabitants thereof.

Your petitioners have not gone into detail with an account of their individual sufferings from death and bruised bodies, and the universal distress which prevails at this day, in a greater or less degree throughout our whole body. Not only because those sacred rights guaranteed to every religious sect have been publicly invaded, in open hostility to the spirit and genius of free government, but such of their houses as have not been burnt, their lands and most of the products of the labor of their hands for the last year, have been wrested from them by a band of outlaws, congregated in Jackson county on the western frontiers of the United States, within about thirty miles of the United States military post at Fort Leavenworth, on the Missouri river.

Your petitioners say that they do not enter a minute detail of the sufferings in this petition lest they should weary the patience of the venerable chief, whose arduous duties they know are great, and daily accumulating. We only hope to show him that this unprecedented emergency in the history of our country,-that the magistracy thereof is set at defiance, and justice checked in open violation of its laws, and that we, your petitioners, who are almost wholly native born citizens of these United States, of whom they purchased their lands in Jackson County, Missouri, with intent to cultivate the same as peaceable citizens, are now forced from them, and dwelling in the counties of Clay, Ray, and Lafayette, in the state of Missouri, without permanent homes, and suffering all the privations which must necessarily result from such inhuman [inhumane] treatment. Under these sufferings, your petitioners petitioned the governor of this state, in December last, in answer to which, we received the following letter: