History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

142 THE STORY OF MORMONISM.
There were now saints everywhere, all over the
United States, particularly throughout the western
portion ; there were isolated believers, and small clusters,
and small and great congregations. There were
also many travelling preachers, men full of the holy
ghost, or believing themselves so, who travelled
without purse or scrip, whom no bufferings, insults,
hunger, or blows could daunt, who feared nothing
that man could do, heaven's door being always open
to them. See now the effects of these persecutions
in Missouri. Twelve thousand were driven from
their homes and set moving by Boggs and his gen-
erals; three fourths of them found new homes at
Quincy, Nauvoo, and elsewhere; but three thousand,
who, but for the persecutions, would have remained
at home and tilled their lands, were preaching and
proselyting, making new converts and establishing
new churches wherever they went. One of their
number, William Smith, was a member of the Illinois
legislature. In the very midst of the war they
were preaching in Jackson county, among their old
enemies and spoilers, striving with all their souls to
win back their Zion, their New Jerusalem. From
New York, February 19, 1840, Brigham Young, H.
C. Kimball, Orson Pratt, and Parley P. Pratt indited
a letter to the saints at Commerce, speaking of the
wonderful progress of the faith, and of their own intended
departure for England. 50
Thus, despite persecution, the saints increased in
number year by year. Before the end of 1840 there
were fifteen thousand souls at Nauvoo, men, women,
and children, not all of them exiles from Missouri,
but from every quarter, old believers and new converts
from different parts of the United States, from
Canada, and from Europe; hither came they to the
city of their God, to the mountain of his holiness.
ering place for all the saints, and in that delightful country they expect to find
their Eden, and build the New Jerusalem.' Bennett's Mormonism Exp., 192-3.
50 See J. D. Hunter's letter of Dec. 26, 1839, from Jackson county, 111., in
Times and Seasons, i. 59.