This, then, was the nature of their offenses; they sinned against the Lord in the particulars named; they sinned against each other in the manner described; they did not trespass against their non-Mormon neighbors, nor break the laws of the land; but they failed to live in accordance with the high moral and spiritual law of the Gospel; they failed to meet the conditions on which God was pledged to their maintenance upon the land of Zion, and hence were left in the hands of their enemies. At the commencement of this subdivision of the Introduction I called attention to the great things which God had revealed to the Saints, the greatness of the dispensation committed unto them, accompanied by the promise to establish Zion and give unto the Saints the land thereof as an everlasting inheritance. It would be marvelous indeed, and past all human experience, if these great things did not turn the heads of some of the weak-minded, and make them vain-glorious and boastful. I doubt not for a moment that many vain and foolish things were said by such characters in the presence of, and perhaps directly to, the old settlers of Jackson county, about the Saints taking possession of the land, and the wicked being driven away. There was doubtless enough of this kind of talk to give color to what the Missourians charged on this head, viz., "They [the Saints] declare openly that their God hath given them this county of land, and that sooner or later they must and will take possession of our lands for an inheritance." The Missourians made much of, and attached a sinister meaning to the following expression in one of the revelations to the Saints: "_The land of Zion shall not be obtained but by purchase or by blood, otherwise there is none inheritance for you_." [30] This the Missourians pretended to regard as a threat to take possession of their land by armed conquest. Had they read the context of the passage they would have known how entirely groundless were their fears, if indeed they had any fears, for I am convinced that all their expressed apprehensions on this head were mere pretense. The passage and its context are: "Wherefore the land of Zion shall not be obtained but by purchase or by blood, otherwise there is none inheritance for you. _And if by purchase, behold you {XLII} are blessed; and if by blood, as you are forbidden to shed blood, lo, your enemies are upon you, and ye shall be scourged from city to city, and from synagogue to synagogue and but few shall stand to receive an inheritance_." [31]