and inform them concerning the people, and the Book of Mormon. This he cheerfully did, as often as his low state of health would permit; and although threatened and abused by some of our pious persecutors, yet he was not much hurt nor interrupted. When a meeting was held, a goodly number were brought to serious inquiry concerning these things, and several would gladly have received baptism, as they afterwards told me. And, thank God, some retain that desire and determination yet." 4. This formal order to discharge every man of Zion's camp and release him to return home may be considered as the termination of Zion's camp expedition for the redemption of Zion. Had Governor Dunklin possessed the courage to enforce the law of the State; had he called out the militia of Missouri to reinstate the exiles in their homes as at one time he expressed a willingness to do, the history of Zion's camp might have had a different ending; for the exiles reinstated in their lands, and reinforced by the two hundred brethren who constituted Zion's camp, might have been able to have maintained their inheritances on that land; but Governor Dunklin when the crisis came, lacked the necessary courage to fulfill his promise, and without the moral assistance which the reinstatement of the Saints upon their lands by the military forces of the state would give, the exiles and Zion's camp were powerless. Perhaps also another view is admissible. Had the members of Zion's camp been more faithful, less contentious, more united; had the Saints in the eastern branches had more faith--faith to send up to Zion more men and more money with which to strengthen the hands of the Saints on the land of Zion--the history of Zion's camp might have been different: for with a larger force they would doubtless have been able to hold their lauds against the mob, independent of the action of the State authorities. But thus it is: what men and great movements might attain to is often defeated, sometimes by the actions of enemies, sometimes by the lack of devotion and faith and energy on the part of those into whose hands great enterprises are committed. While God's general purposes will never ultimately be defeated by man, still upon each side of the general purposes of God a margin somewhat wide seems to have been left in which those both for and against those purposes may write what history they please--one that will meet with the approval of God, or one that will meet only with condemnation--herein is the agency of man. But in the exercise of that agency God's purposes will not be thwarted, for man's agency will not extend so far as that; if it did, it would interfere with God's agency and decrees. The order above, I again remark, closed the history of this first march of Zion's Camp; and the redemption of Zion has been left to other hands, and to other times. But that its redemption will come no one doubts who believes in the firm decrees of God.