LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 211 



founded the New Jerusalem, which, it had been declared by the 

 prophet jMormon, should rise out of the wilderness of the west, 

 and wJiere the chosen people should be collected under one church, 

 and governed by the elders after a " spiritual fashion." 



The city of Nauvoo soon became a large and imposing settle- 

 ment. An enomious 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 wero 

 kept for the common good. 



However, here, as every Avhere else, they were continually 

 quarreling with their neighbors ; and as their numbers increased, 

 so did their audacity. A regular Mormon militia was again or- 

 ganized 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 consequence, the executive 

 took measures to put down the nuisance, and a regular war 

 commenced, and was carried 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, how- 

 ever, who, it seemed, were much better skilled in the use of the 

 tongue than the rifle, succumbed ; the city of Nauvoo was takeii.; 

 Joe Smith and other ringleading 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 leveled 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 Mormon cause 

 declined ; but still thousands of proselytes joined them annually, 

 and at last the State took measures to remove them altogether, as 

 a body, from the country. 



