258 LIFE IN THE FAR WEST 



ing settlement. An enormous building, called the 

 Temple of Zion, was erected, half church half hotel, in 

 which Joe Smith and the other prophets resided and 

 large storehouses were connected with it, in which the 

 goods and chattels belonging to the community were 

 kept for the common good. 



However, here, as everywhere else, they were 

 continually quarrelling with their neigbours ; and as 

 their numbers increased, so did their audacity. A 

 regular Mormon militia was again organised and 

 armed, under the command of experienced officers, 

 who had joined the sect ; and now the authority of 

 the state government was openly defied. In conse- 

 quence, the executive took measures to put down the 

 nuisance, and a regular war commenced, and was car- 

 ried on for some time, with no little bloodshed on both 

 sides ; and this armed movement is known in the 

 United States as the Mormon war. The Mormons, 

 however, who, it seemed, were much better skilled in 

 the use of the tongue than the rifle, succumbed : the 

 city of Nauvoo was taken, Joe Smith and other ring- 

 leading prophets captured ; and the former, in an 

 attempt to escape from his place of confinement, was 

 seized and shot. The Mormons declare he had long 

 foretold his own fate, and that when the rifles of the 

 firing party who were his executioners were levelled at 

 the prophet's breast, a flash of lightning struck the 

 weapons from their hands, and blinded for a time the 

 eyes of the sacrilegious soldiers. 



With the death of Joe Smith the prestige of the 



