the revision of the Old Testament. In June he received the revelation giving the dimensions of the temple that "the Lord" required to be built by the Saints in Kirtland, and on the 23rd of July the first stone was laid.
From the day of trouble between the first sons of Adam, there never was a controversy without a double statement of what were the contributory causes. In Mormon history, charges and recriminations concerning the hostilities in Missouri are prolific; but it is generally admitted that at the first outbreak the anti-Mormons "were actuated much more by a fear of what the Mormons would do when they had the power than by what they had already done."[1] On the other hand, the Mormons, proud of the promises of a glorious future, were boastful of the favours and possessions that awaited them; and probably some of them taunted the Missourians with the coming change. But even this, however injudicious, was not likely to lead to armed hostility. Before men resort to bloodshed, there is generally something that outrages them in a personal way, and when once that is the case a very slight pretext alone is necessary to produce a collision.
At the commencement of hostilities, the country of the New Jerusalem was only sparsely settled, and the Mormons probably numbered about 1,500 souls. "Whatever evidence there is to support the charges of wrong-doing which were afterwards made against some of them in other parts of Missouri, and later still in Illinois, they were, in 1833, both too few in number and too sincere in faith to assume an aggressive attitude. As a people, they could not have been very bad; for Joseph was constantly chastening them for the slightest neglect of the revelations, and they had gathered to Missouri in the full belief that Christ was coming thither to join the faithful band. Under such circumstances, it is but fair to consider them, however chimerical in faith, intentionally right in practice, except where there is the evidence of fact to the contrary.
The other citizens of Missouri had little sympathy with the new arrivals, and saw very clearly that, with the constant accession to their numbers, it would only be a short time before the Mormons would become a political power among them—
- ↑ "Mysteries and Crimes of Mormonism," p. 41.
