Page:Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow monochrome.djvu/190

 Four hundred miles south of the Great Salt Lake City an extensive settlement is being made. Likewise one on the borders of the Pacific Ocean, near to the port of San Diego. They have also organized a State government, called the "State of Deseret," and have now their claims for admission into the Federal union before the Congress of the United States.

That the reader may understand how this people are viewed by the public at large, we subjoin the following extract from an American newspaper:

We wish to call the reader's attention to the new and most extraordinary condition of the Saints. Several thousand of them have found a resting place in the most remarkable spot on the North American continent. Since the children of Israel wandered through the wilderness, or the Crusaders rushed on Palestine, there has been nothing so historically singular as the emigration and recent settlement of the Saints. Thousands of them came from the Manchesters and Sheffields of England to join other thousands congregated from western New York and New England—boasted descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers—together, to establish a colony in the west. Having a Temple amid the churches and schools of Lake County, Ohio, and driven from it by popular opinion, they build the Nauvoo of Illinois. "It becomes a great town; twenty thousand people flock to it. They are again assaulted by popular persecution; their Prophet murdered; their town depopulated; and, finally, their Temple burned. Does all this persecution to which they have been subjected destroy them? Not at all. Seven thousand are now settled in flourishing circumstances on the plateau summit of the North American continent. Thousands more are about to join them from Iowa, and thousands more are coming from Wales. The spectacle is most singular, and this is one of the singular episodes of the great drama of this age. The spot on which the Saints are now settled is geographically one of the most interesting in the western world.—Cincinnati Atlas.

In concluding this brief history of the temporal situation of the Saints, we feel peculiar pleasure in being able to leave them in such prosperous circumstances. The wisdom, cunning and powers of men have been exerted to stay the