In Illinois further trouble was inaugurated by Missourians. They sought on one occasion to kidnap the Prophet, but failed. Fabricated charges were made against the Prophet. He was tried as before, and every time acquitted. When his last trial was being conducted, the mob (like the rabble in the halls of Pilate) said that if the law could not touch him, powder and lead should. Their nefarious purposes were permitted to be carried out, and on June 27th, 1844, Joseph and Hyrum, while under the pledged protection of Gov. Ford, were assassinated by a howling mob in Carthage jail, Hancock county, Illinois. Previous to his martyrdom, the Prophet Joseph had received more than one hundred revelations, had been instrumental in organizing the Church in its fullness, and bestowing the keys of the kingdom of God upon the Twelve Apostles. To Nauvoo were gathered thousands of people from the several states, Canada and Great Britain. At the time of the Prophet's martyrdom the Twelve were abroad on missions, with the exception of Elders John Taylor and Willard Richards, who were with the Prophet and Patriarch at the time of the martyrdom, Elder Taylor himself being wounded with four bullets. While the Saints were in Missouri the Lord commanded that they should importune the officers of the law in the districts where the trouble occurred, and not being heeded, should appeal to the governor, thence to the president of the United States. All this was done, without avail. The president answered their appeal by saying, "Gentlemen, your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you." Governors of states were written to, to use their influence to avert the wrongs heaped upon the Saints, but from one or two only came a favorable response. On the failure of the states and nation to protect their own citizens against mob violence and plunder, the Lord promised to vex the nation with a sore vexation. This was done in the hundreds of thousands of lives and the millions in treasure lost in the Civil War. The outbreak of this war was revealed by the Lord to Joseph twenty-eight years before it came to pass, and published to the world as early as 1851. The Church was not founded by men, nor did it depend upon any particular man or set of men for strength, growth or progress. God has rounded and protected and is perpetuating His Church on the earth, so that when the Prophet passed to the life beyond, the work continued and grew with great rapidity. It is said, and truly, that "the blood of the martyr is the seed of the Church."