The institution-The Church-brought into existence, and its doctrines developed amid so much of spiritual tempest and pursued so relentlessly by mob violence, and which may be said to have had a second birth at Nauvoo, and to have received sanctification from the martyrdom of her earthly founder The Church which these exiles bore with them into the western wilderness was not born to die. Whatever might be the fate of The Church and the Saints in other dispensations of the Gospel, God had now introduced the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times, in which He has decreed that all things in Christ shall be gathered together in one-even in Him.* A dispensation in which the salvation of man and the redemption of the earth itself shall be consummated. And the earth and men made ready for the all glorious reign of truth and righteousness so long promised by God and His prophets. Hence The Church was not destroyed; and the people who fled with her to the wilderness did not perish. The blinding storms of sleet and rain which enveloped their principal companies as in melancholy trains they penetrated the wilderness of the then territory of Iowa, might easily have been taken for God's curtain rung down upon the most melancholy scene in America's history-the scene of a people in free America-the boasted asylum for the oppressed, where religious freedom is guaranteed by express constitutional provision-fleeing from the worst forms of oppression the oppression of mob violence invoked in Illinois to crush their religious faith. But the curtain so rung down was not upon the final act. The hand of God again rolled it up; and when He did, it was to reveal to the world the exiles as the redeemers of desert wastes; the planters of cities; the builders of temples, the founders of States; and for themselves and for their religious faith so entrenched, so strengthened, so enlarged that the world shall never, while the earth itself remains, or sun or stars en

* Eph. 1: 9, 10.

dure be rid of that faith founded-under God-by JOSEPH SMITH, THE PROPHET-MARTYR OF NAUVOO.

APPENDICES.

APPENDIX I.

CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN JOSEPH SMITH AND JOHN C. CALHOUN.

HON. JOHN C. CALHOUN.

DEAR SIR, AS we understand you are a candidate for the Presidency at the next election; and as the Latter-day Saints (sometimes called Mormons, who now constitute a numerous class in the school politic of this vast republic,) have been robbed of an immense amount of property, and endured nameless sufferings by the State of Missouri, and from her borders have been driven by force of arms, contrary to our national covenants; and as in vain we have sought redress by all constitutional, legal, and honorable means, in her courts, her executive councils and her legislative halls; and as we have petitioned Congress to take cognizance of our sufferings without effect, we have judged it wisdom to address you this communication, and solicit an immediate, specific and candid reply to "What will be your rule of action relative to us as a people," should fortune favor your ascension to the chief magistracy?

Most respectfully, sir, your friend,

and the friend of peace, good order,
and constitutional rights,

JOSEPH SMITH.

In behalf of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

FORT HILL, 2ND DECEMBER, 1843.

SIR,-You ask me what would be my rule of action relative to the Mormons or Latter-day Saints, should I be e'ected President; to

which I answer, that if I should be elected, I would strive to administer the government according to the Constitution and the laws of the Union; and that as they make no distinction between citizens of different religious creeds, I should make rone. As far as it depends on the executive department, all should have the full benefit of both, and none should be exempt from their operation.

But as you refer to the case of Missouri, candor compels me to repeat what I said to you at Washington, that, according to my views, the case does not come within the jurisdiction of the federal government, which is one of limited and specific powers.

With respect, I am, &c., &c.,

Mr. Joseph Smith.

J. C. CALHOUN.

NAUVOO, ILLINOIS, JANUARY 2, 1844.

SIR, Your reply to my letter of last November, concerning your rule of action towards the Latter-day Saints, if elected president, is at hand; and that you and your friends of the same opinion relative to the matter in question may not be disappointed as to me or my mind upon so grave a subject, permit me, as a law-abiding man, as a well-wisher to the perpetuity of constitutional rights and liberty, and as a friend to the free worship of Almighty God by all, according to the dictates of every person's own conscience, to say I am surprised that a man or men in the highest stations of public life should have made up such a fragile "view" of a case, than which there is not one on the face of the globe fraught with so much consequence to the happiness of men in this world or the world to come.

To be sure, the first paragraph of your letter appears very complacent and fair on a white sheet of paper. And who, that is ambitious for greatness and power, would not have said the same thing? Your oath would bind you to support the Constitution and laws; and as all creeds and religions are alike tolerated, they must, of course, all be justified or condemned according to merit or demerit. But why-tell me why are all the principal men held up for public stations so cautiously careful not to publish to the world that they will judge a righteous judgment, law or no law? for laws and opinions, like the vanes of steeples, change with the wind.

One Congress passes a law, another repeals it; and one statesman says that the Constitution means this, and another that; and who does not know that all may be wrong? The opinion and pledge, therefore, in the first paragraph of your reply to my question, like the forced steam from the engine of a steam-boat, makes the show of a bright cloud at first; but when it comes in contact with a purer atmosphere, dissolves to common air again.

Your second paragraph leaves you naked before yourself, like a likeness in a mirror, when you say that, "according to your view, the federal government is one of limited and specific powers," and has no jurisdiction in the case of the Mormons. So then a State can at any time expel any portion of her citizens with impunity, and, in the language of Mr. Van Buren, frosted over with your gracious "views of the case,” though the cause is ever so just, Government can do nothing for them, because it has no power.

Go on, then, Missouri, after another set of inhabitants (as the Latter-day Saints did,) have entered some two or three hundred thousand dollars' worth of land; and made extensive improvements thereon. Go on, then, I say; banish the occupants or owners, or kill them, as the mobbers did many of the Latter-day Saints, and take their land and property as spoil; and let the legislature, as in the case of the Mormons, appropriate a couple of hundred thousand dollars to pay the mob for doing that job; for the renowned senator from South Carolina, Mr. J. C. Calhoun, says the powers of the federal government are so specific and limited that it has no jurisdiction of the case! O ye people who groan under the oppression of tyrants!-ye exiled Poles, who have felt the iron hand of Russian grasp! -ye poor and unfortunate among all nations! come to the asylum of the oppressed; buy ye lands of the general government; pay in your money to the treasury to strengthen the army and the navy; worship God according to the dictates of your own consciences; pay in your taxes to support the great heads of a glorious nation: but remember a "sovereign State" is so much more powerful than the United States, the parent government, that it can exile you at pleasure, mob you with impunity, confiscate your lands and property, have the legislature sanction it,—yea, even murder you as an edict of an emperor, and it does no wrong; for the noble senator of South