120 THE STORY OF MORMONISM.
Sidney Rigdon delivered the oration on this occa- sion; and being an American citizen, and one of the founders of an American religion, it was perhaps nat- ural for him to indulge in a little Fourth-of-July ora- tory; it was natural, but under the circumstances it was exceedingly impolitic. "We take God to wit- ness," cries Sidney, " and the holy angels to witness this day, that we warn all men, in the name of Jesus Christ, to come on us no more forever. The man or the set of men who attempt it, do it at the expense of their lives; and that mob that comes on us to disturb us, there shall be between us and them a war of ex- termination, for we will follow them till the last drop of their blood is spilled, or else they will have to exter- minate us; for we will carry the war to their own houses, and their own families, and one party or the other shall be utterly destroyed."
On the 8th of July there was a revelation on tithing. Early in August a conference was held at Diahman, and a military company, called the Host of Israel, was organized after the manner of the priesthood, in- cluding all males of eighteen years and over. There were captains of ten, of fifty, and of a hundred; the organization included the entire military force of the church, as had the Kirtland army previously a part of it.^^
At length the storm burst. The state election of 1838 was held in Daviess county at the town of Gal- latin on the 6th of August. Soon after the polls were opened, William Peniston, cantlidate for the leg- islature, mounted a barrel and began to speak, attack- ing the Mormons with degrading epithets, calling them horse-thieves and robbers, and swearing they should not vote in that county. Samuel Brown, a Mormon, who stood by, pronounced the charges un- true, and said that for one he should vote. Im- mediately Brown was struck by one Weldin, whose arm, in attempting to repeat the blow, was caught by
^^ 'Every mau obeyed the call.' Leu's Mormonism, 57.
