History of Joseph Smith

[Continued.]

After the mob had ceased yelling, and retired; and while evening was spreading her dark mantle over the unblushing scenery, as if to hide it from the gaze of day; men, women and children, who had been driven or frightened from their homes, by yells and threats, began to return from their hiding places, in thickets, corn fields, woods and groves, and view with heavy hearts the scenery of desolation and wo; and while they mourned over fallen man, they rejoiced with joy unspeakable that they were accounted worthy to suffer in the glorious cause of their Divine Master.

There lay the printing office a heap of ruins; Elder Phelp's furniture strewed over the garden as common plunder; the revelations, bookwork, papers and press in the hands of the mob as the booty of highway robbers; there was Bishop Partridge in the midst of his family, with a few friends, endeavoring to scrape off the "tar," which, from eating his flesh, seemed to have been prepared with lime, pearl-ash, acid, or some flesh eating commodity, to destroy him; and there was Charles Allen in the same awful condition. As the heart sickens at the recital, how much more at the picture! More than once, those people, in this boasted land of liberty, were brought into jeopardy, and threatened with expulsion or death because they wished to worship God according to the revelations of heaven, the constitution of their country, and the dictates of their own consciences. Oh liberty, how art thou fallen! Alas! clergymen! where is thy charity? In the smoke that ascendeth up forever and ever.

Early in the morning of the 23rd of July, the mob again assembled, armed with weapons of war, and bearing a red flag. Whereupon the elders, led by the spirit of God, and in order to save time, and stop the effusion of blood, entered into a treaty with the mobbers to leave the county within a certain time, which treaty, with accompanying documents, will appear in its proper place. The execution of this treaty presented an opportunity for the brethren in Zion, to confer with the presidency in Kirtland concerning their situation, which they improved by dispatching Elder O. Cowdery, a special messenger, after a delay of two or three days.

On the same day, while the brethren in Missouri were preparing to leave the county, through the violence of the mob, the corner stones of the Lord's House were laid in Kirtland, after the order of the holy priesthood.

On the second of August, "the Western Monitor, printed at Fayette, Missouri, edited by Weston F. Birch, published the proceedings of the mob, as follows: