Clearly this is a warning to the Saints, not a threat to the Missourians. If the Saints obtained the land by purchase they were blessed. If by blood--since the Saints were forbidden to shed blood, lo their enemies would be upon them and they would be driven from city to city--not the Missourians, but the Saints. In consequence of the agitation of this matter by the foolish, the following passage occurred in _The Evening and Morning Star_ for July, 1833, addressed to the churches scattered abroad: "To suppose that we can come up here and take possession of this land by the shedding of blood, would be setting at nought the law of the glorious Gospel, and also the word of our great Redeemer. And to suppose that we can take possession of this country without making regular purchases of the same according to the laws of our nation, would be reproaching this great Republic, in which the most of us were born, and under whose auspices we all have protection." [32] Of this the Missourians said that whether they were to be dispossessed of their lands "by the hand of the destroying angel, the judgments of God, or the arm of power, they [the Saints] are not fully agreed among themselves. Some recent remarks in the _Evening and Morning Star_, their organ in this place, by their tendency to moderate such hopes, and repress such desires, show plainly that many of this deluded and infatuated people have been taught to believe that our lands were to be won from us by the sword!" [33] Thus the very efforts of the Church to correct the misconceptions and silence the utterances of the over-zealous and foolish members, were made to contribute as proof that the Saints contemplated the very armed conquest of the land which they disclaimed. History, however, will do the Saints justice, and it will say, and now says, that neither their general principles, nor the special commandments under which they moved into the land of Zion, nor any act of theirs warranted the least suspicion that they at any time contemplated taking possession of the land by force, or in any other manner whatsoever except by purchase and possession under the laws of the state of Missouri and the United States. And while history will do them this justice it will at the same time say that the "fears" of the Missourians on this head were simulated; that to the foolish boasts of a few ignorant persons they attached an undue importance because it happened to give a coloring to their pretended fears in the eyes of those at a distance who had no {XLIII} opportunity to learn the truth, and tended to prejudice the public mind against the Saints, and thus served the purpose of their enemies.