At that date, August 6th, 1842, the Rocky Mountains seemed like a country afar off to the people of Illinois. The Missouri River was the extreme frontiers of the United States. All beyond that was well nigh an unexplored wilderness filled with savages. The church was fairly settled at Nauvoo, the state authorities were apparently very friendly, the future of the Saints in Illinois seemed propitious. Yet in the midst of all these favorable circumstances the prophet predicted much affliction for some of the Saints, death from persecution for others, apostasy for many, and for the great body of the church an exodus to the Rocky Mountains, where some of those present who were listening to the prediction, should live to assist in making settlements and building cities in the Rocky Mountains where they would see the Saints become a mighty people. There can be no question as to the reality of these two predictions, the one of March, 1831, and the other of August, 1842, or of their being of a character to test the divine inspiration of him who uttered them. That they were proclaimed some years before the events predicted in them began to be fulfilled, or even there was any thought or prospect of such events taking place, is well known; that the latter prophecy has been fulfilled to the uttermost, the whole history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from August, 1842, until now witnesses. The Saints suffered many afflictions in Illinois. Their homes, fields, stacks of grain, stock and other property were destroyed; their prophets and a number of others were killed outright by mob violence; many more perished from exposure and disease occasioned by being driven from their homes at an inclement season of the year. In those trying times, following the martyrdom of the prophet and the expulsion from Nauvoo, many turned away from the faith, and it is too generally known to need comment, that the great body of the church made its way to the Rocky Mountains, where cities, towns and villages have been founded, the wilderness subdued, and the Saints are fast becoming a mighty people. Footnotes 1. Doc. and Cov., Sec. xi: 1-4. See also Sec. iv, Sec. vi, Sec. xii, and Sec. xiv, where the same prophecy is repeated. 2. Doc. and Cov., Sec. ciii, 5-14. 3. Holes dug in the ground and covered over with brush and earth. 4. 1895. 5. A stake of Zion is a division of the church comprised of several ecclesiastical wards; and is presided over by a presidency consisting of three high priests. 6. The language of General Clark was: "As for your leaders, do not once think--do not imagine for a moment--do not let it enter your mind that they will be delivered, or that you will see their faces again; for their fate is fixed--their die is cast--their doom is sealed."--Autob. P. P. Pratt, p. 266. 7. Pratt's Autob., p. 210. 8. Mill. Star, Vol. xvii, p. 85; also, Doc. and Cov., Sec. cxxii.