AFFAIRS IN MISSOURI. 115
When tlie day arrived great numbers convened from the different churches in the country. They spent the day in fasting and prayer, and in washing and perfuming their bodies; they also washed their feet, and anointed their heads with what they called holy oil, and pronounced blessings. In the evening they met for the endowment. The fast was then broken." Midsummer of 1837 saw Parley P. Pratt in New York city, where he printed the first edition of his Voice of Warning,^ and where he labored wuth great earnest- ness, at first under many discouragements, later with sio-nal success. After that he went once more to Missouri. Others were going in the same direction from Kirtland and elsewhere during the entire period between 1831 andl838. The Messenger and Advocate having been discontinued, the Eldei^'s Journal was started by Joseph Smith in Kirtland in October 1837.
After the emeutes which occurred in Jackson county in the autumn of 1833, as before related, the saints escaped as best they were able to Clay county, where they were kindly received. Some took up their abode in Lafayette and Van Buren counties, and a few in Ray and Clinton counties.^ For their lands, stock, furniture, buildings, and other property destroyed in Jackson county, they received little or no compensa- tion ; on the contrary, some who went back for their effects were caught and beaten.^ Nevertheless, there
- It consisted of 4,000 copies. The author states that ' it has since been
published and republished in America and Europe, till some 40,000 or 50,000 copies have not been sufficient to supply the demand.' Pratt's Autobiojraphy^ 184.
^Most of these fled into Clay co., where they were received with some degree of kindness, and encamped on the banks of the Missouri. Those who went into Van Buren and Lafayette counties were soon expelled, and had to move. Pratt's Persecution, 51; Machaij's Mormons, 78; Times and Seasons, vi. 91.3. The Missouri River bends to the east as it enters the state, and rung in a generally east direction through the western counties. Jackson co. is immediately south of Clay — the river being the dividing line — and Van Buren lies next south of Jackson. All west of the state line was Indian ter- ritoiy, as I have said. See map, p. 121 this vol.
® The Jackson co. exiles being in a destitute condition, a conference was
