Since the disgraceful combination of the inhabitants of Jackson county has set the law at defiance, and put all hope of criminal prosecution against them, in that vicinage, beyond the reach of judge or jury, and left us but a distant expectation of civil remuneration for the great amount of damages we have sustained, necessity compels us to complain to the world; and if our case and calamity are not sufficient to excite the commiseration of the humane, and open the hearts of the generous, and fire the spirits of the patriotic, then has sympathy lost herself in the wilderness, and justice fled from power; then has the dignity of the ermine shrunk at the gigantic front of a mob, and the sacred mantle of freedom been caught up to heaven, where the weary are at rest and the wicked cannot come. To be obedient to the commandments of our Lord and Savior, some of the leaders of the Church commenced purchasing lands in the western boundaries of the State of Missouri, according to the revelation of God, for the city of Zion; in doing which, no law was evaded no rights infringed, and no principle of religion neglected; but the laudable foundation of a glorious work was begun, for the salvation of mankind in the last days, agreeable to our faith, and according to the promises in the sacred Scriptures of God. We verily believed--knowing that the national and state constitutions, and the statute laws of the land, and the commandments of the Lord allowed all men to worship as they please--that we should be protected, not only by the laws of a free republic, but by every republican throughout the realms of freedom. The holy prophets have declared, that "it shall come to pass in the {129} last days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." And again, it was said by Joel, seemingly to strengthen the faith of the Latter-day Saints in the above, "that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered: for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call." The Book of Mormon, which we hold equally sacred with the Bible, says, "that a New Jerusalem should be built up upon this land, unto the remnant of the seed of Joseph, for the which things there has been a type."