{XLIV} By this time the Prophet Joseph and other leading men of the Church had left Kirtland and located with the Saints in Missouri, and everything looked propitious for the permanent establishment of the Saints in the borders of Zion. The Saints had now been driven bodily from Jackson county; and their homes, store houses and printing establishment had been destroyed. The courts of Missouri had proven powerless to restore to them their homes, their lands and other property. The executive of the state confessed himself powerless to return them to their possessions in Jackson county, and maintain them there against the wishes of the people of that county. Indeed, Governor Dunklin had weakly given up the vindication of the outraged laws of the state, as we have seen, saying that whether the charges of their enemies or the denials by the Saints were true he could not tell; their neighbors seemed to believe them true, and whether true or false the consequences would be the same, unless the Saints by their conduct and argument could convince the Missourians of their innocence. "If you cannot do this," said the governor, "all I can say to you is that in this Republic the _vox populi is the vox Dei_!" The Saints at some considerable sacrifice had withdrawn from Clay county at the request of her citizens, in the interests of peace, and had settled in the new counties of Caldwell and Daviess, where settlers were few and the country less desirable than in Jackson and Clay counties. In doing these things they had repeatedly sacrificed their rights as citizens, both of Missouri and of the United States. Smitten on the one cheek--speaking figuratively--they had turned the other; sued at the law for their coat, they had given their cloak also; compelled to go one mile with their enemy, they had gone with him twain. After doing all this for the sake of peace and the friendship of the Missourians, when the Saints saw forming again those elements which threatened their peace; when old enemies appeared upon the new scene of the Saints' activities, and openly threatened their peace and boasted that they would again prosper by despoiling them of their new possessions; when they saw the red right hand of a relentless persecution arming again to plague them, it is small wonder if righteous anger flushed their cheek, made bright their eyes with indignation and led them instinctively to form the resolution that they would submit no more to such acts of despoliation, injustice and outrage.