--- title: Times and Seasons description: Issues of 1845 to 1846. authors: - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints editors: - Ebenezer Robinson - Don Carlos Smith - Smith, Joseph, Jr. - Taylor, John collections: - periodicals tags: - newspaper - times-and-seasons - nauvoo - nineteenth-century periodical: Times and Seasons volume: 6 number: 7 published: 1845-04-15 publisher: E. Robinson and D. C. Smith; later John Taylor publisher_place: Commerce and Nauvoo, Illinois language: en type: article reference: "“The Cross of Our Savior,” *Times and Seasons* 6, no. 7 (April 15, 1845): 874–875." printed_title: THE CROSS OF OUR SAVIOR. source: url: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1845-04-15_6_7 transcription: Text from the Centerplace.org transcription (https://www.centerplace.org/history/ts/v6n07.htm), with its page breaks; this Internet Archive scan is the reference copy (its OCR was used only as a witness for OCR repair) identifier: per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1845-04-15_6_7 start_page: 874 end_page: 875 curator_note: A Mormon newspaper published by the church in Nauvoo; included for historical study. Inclusion does not imply endorsement. rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1845 (Nauvoo, Illinois); published before 1931, so public domain in the United States source: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1845-04-15_6_7 publication_year: 1845 --- # The Cross of Our Savior Philadelphia at the present moment, says the Philadelphia Citizen Soldier, is like a powder barrel with alighted candle stuck in the center [center]. Every moment the candle burns nearer to the powder, inch by inch, and fragment by fragment is consumed. Every instant an awful explosion is threatened, and as spark after spark falls on the edges of the barrel, considerable anxiety is manifested in the question, "will not the next spark fall into the powder itself?" NATIVISM is the lighted candle, burning in the powder-keg of the Quaker city. It has been placed there by hands red with blood; it has been fanned by the breath of traitors and demagogues; and now the sparks begin to fall around the edge of the keg. Beware of the moment when the sparks fall into the powder! Beware the hour when intolerance and bigotry, foul-mouthed and red-handed, shall have done their work of treason! Beware the day when License is let loose again in the streets of Philadelphia; when Riot applies the torch in the Church of God; when Murder shoots the officers of the law and buries its own dead in the American flag! As an instance of the peculiar state of feeling which prevails in Philadelphia at the present time, we will relate an incident. On Tuesday, the 18th ult., when the Native procession was passing, an idle lad about our office made a rude cross (†) with a printer's roller on a sheet of printing paper, and hung it out the window. It had not hung there five minutes, when a scene was enacted which would have done honor to the Turks of Constantinople, the Rioters of Kensington, or the Assassins of Southwark. A mob surrounded our office, hooting like incarnate fiends as they pointed to the cross, and clamoring madly for the destruction of the building in front of which it hung! And this, because an Emblem of the Death and Redemption of the LORD JESUS was hung from the window! The CROSS, which symbols universal love, became the object of the hatred of a mob, who are ripe for any deed of blood, any act of outrage! And this in Christian Protestant Philadelphia! This is the city founded by William Penn on the principles of universal toleration! The Cross of Jesus is the signal for mob violence, for arson and for murder. While the clamor was at its highest pitch, a sudden gust of wind tore the paper on which the cross was pasted, from the bricks of the building, and it fell into the hands of the mob. They tore it to fragments, with curses and yells. Ere an instant a hundred hands grasped the symbol of Salvation, and shook its fragments in the air with brutal hurrahs and frenzied yells. They then passed round the corner, brandishing the tokens of their triumph in front of certain offices where are published the SUN and the AMERICAN ADVOCATE. This little incident speaks for itself.