The words of Joseph Smith pertaining to this opening of the heavens, are well expressed. "Nothing," he has written, "could be more pleasing to the Saints upon the order of the kingdom of the Lord, than the light which burst upon the world through the foregoing vision. Every law, every commandment, every promise, every truth, and every point touching the destiny of man, from Genesis to Revelation, where the purity of the scriptures remains unsullied by the folly of men, go to show the perfection of the theory [of different degrees of glory in the future life] and witness the fact that that document is a transcript from the records of the eternal world. The sublimity of the ideas; the purity of the language; the scope for action; the continued duration for completion, in order that the heirs of salvation may confess the Lord and bow the knee; the rewards for faithfulness, and the punishments for sins, are so much beyond the narrow-mindedness of men, that every honest man is constrained to exclaim: "It came from God!" Joseph Smith or any other man guided by the inspiration of man's power could not have written it. Mob Violence in Hiram Before going to Hiram, Ohio, to live, Joseph Smith and his wife adopted two children (twins) of Elder John Murdock's. Their mother died at their birth, and Emma Smith, having lost twins of her own which were born the same day, took the Murdock twins to raise. In March, 1832, when these children were about eleven months old, they took the measles, and their care caused both the Prophet and his wife to lose much rest. On the night of the 24th, after the family had retired, a mob surrounded the house, broke open the door and dragged the Prophet into the open. On the way he managed to get one foot loose with which he kicked one of the ruffians and knocked him down. At this, with blasphemous oath, the fiends swore they would kill the Prophet if he made further resistance. They then choked him until he was unconscious. When he came too, he discovered Sidney Rigdon, whom they had also taken from his home and dragged by his heels so that his head struck at every step on the frozen earth. He was unconscious on the ground. About sixty rods from the house the mob held a council to decide what further action they might take. Some were ready to kill the Prophet, but returning to him they attempted to force a vial of acid in his mouth, but the vial was broken against his teeth. An attempt was also made to fill his mouth with tar; failing in this they tore from him his clothes, and applied the tar with feathers to his body. After shamefully beating him they left him helpless on the ground. Joseph attempted to rise, but fell to the ground again. After a while he began to recover his strength, and made his way with difficulty to his home.