Crime and Calamity

Since the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has revived for the gathering of Israel, there has not a season ushered in the tokens of the "time of the end" so visibly to the eyes of a wondering world, as this. The crimes of every description, almost go beyond the bounds of belief; the papers are filled with affrays, duels, murders, thefts, and many other outrages upon liberty, law, life and property: "blood toucheth blood."

And as our paper is delayed a little beyond the day of publication, we are enabled to say that calamity has visited many parts of the country, thus far in this month, with the vengeance that seems to whisper: "shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?" Our last mails have brought us the account of a great fire in Pittsburgh, which has destroyed some ten or twelve hundred houses, with nearly as many millions worth of property. Also a fire in Milwaukie [Milwaukee] which consumed near one hundred thousand dollars worth of property. In fact we might add to the list some fifteen or twenty others, which have characterised [characterized] April as a month of vexation, as well as a season to bud the glories of summer.

None of the visitations, however, which have fallen suddenly upon this generation, have touched the sympathies with a keener sensibility than the wreck of the steamer Swallow, in the Hudson river, near Athens, N. Y., on the 8th inst. Out of some two hundred and fifty or three hundred passengers, about fifty or sixty were landed in eternity under circumstances which ought to warn the living to beware how they trust their lives in the hands of men!

It is too evident to be concealed, that God is vexing this nation. As testimony on this head read the following:-