Page:The Voice of Truth.djvu/29

 is the patriotism of '76! Where is the virtue of our forefathers? and where is the sacred honor of freemen?

Must we, because we believe in the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ; the administration of angels, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, like the prophets and apostles of old,—must we be mobbed with impunity—be exiled from our habitations and property without remedy; murdered without mercy — and government find the weapons, and pay the vagabonds for doing the jobs, and give them the plunder into the bargain? Must we, because we believe in enjoying the constitutional privilege and right of worshipping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own consciences; and because we believe in repentance, and baptism for the remission of sins; the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands; the resurrection of the dead; the millennium; the day of judgment; and the Book of Mormon as the history of the aborigines of this continent,—must we be expelled from the institutions of our country; the rights of citizenship, and the graves of our friends and brethren, and the government lock the gate of humanity, and shut the door of redress against us?—If so, farewell freedom; adieu to personal safety,—and let the red hot wrath of an offended God purify the nation of such sinks of corruption! For that realm is hurrying to ruin where vice has the power to expel virtue.

My father, who stood, several times in the battles of the American Revolution, till his companions, in arms, had been shot dead, at his feet, was forced from his home in Far West, Missouri, by those civilized, or satanized savages, in the dreary season of winter, to seek a shelter in another State; and the vicissitudes and sufferings consequent to his flight, brought his honored grey head to the grave, a few months after.—And my youngest brother, also, in the vigor and bloom of youth, from his great exposure and fatigue in endeavoring to assist his parents on their journey, (I and my brother Hyrum being in chains, in dungeons—where they tried to feed us upon human flesh—in Missouri,) was likewise so debilitated that he found a premature grave shortly after my father. And my mother, too, though she yet lingers among us, from her extreme exposure in that dreadful tragedy, was filled with rheumatic affections and other diseases, which leaves her no enjoyment of health. She is sinking in grief and pain, broken hearted, from Missouri persecution.

O death! wilt thou not give to every honest man, a heated dart to sting those wretches while they pollute the land? and O grave! wilt thou not open the trap door to the pit of ungodly men, that they may stumble in!