Though but few individuals in the church can be considered wealthy, yet the Saints are a prosperous, contented, happy people. A greater percentage of them own the homes they live in and the lands they cultivate than is the case with any other community in the world; and they are freer than any other people on earth from those difficulties which perplex mankind. Peace is in their habitations, God is honored at the family altars as well as in the public sanctuaries; faith and confidence in God abound, and on every hand are evidences that the Lord has owned them and blessed them as his people. It is true that the church has had its tribulations. Immunity from them was not promised. The expulsion from the state of Missouri; the exodus from Illinois; the subsequent journey into the wilderness; the desperate struggle for existence in the early days of Utah; the judicial crusade waged against the church during the last decade; these events and all the bloodshed, wholesale imprisonment, and the suffering and sorrow incident to them rise up to proclaim that mob violence and other forces of this world have been employed to destroy the work of God, but they have not prevailed. The church of Christ still exists; its members are more numerous and stronger in faith than ever before; the Saints are more perfectly organized, happier circumstanced, more experienced; they are more confident of God's sustaining power, more convinced of their high destiny and the complete fulfillment of this noble prophecy, namely, that if they continue to hearken to the counsels of the Lord, they will continue to prevail until the kingdoms of this world are subdued under his feet, and the earth given to the Saints to possess it forever and ever. Of the second division of the prophecy little need be said, except that the first part of it, _viz:_ that which relates to the tribulation which is to befall the Saints previous to the redemption of Zion has been, in part at least, fulfilled; and like the partial fulfillment of the first division of the prophecy, gives good earnest of the complete accomplishment of all that it predicts.