It was this sense of outraged justice and humanity which led to the deliverance of a very noted "Oration" by Sidney Rigdon at Far West, on the Fourth of July, 1838, in the course of which there was expressed a strong determination to no more submit quietly to mob violence, and acts of pillage. At this distance of time from that occasion, and balancing against the heated utterances of the speaker the subsequent uses made of them to incite the public mind to that series of acts which {XLV} culminated in the expulsion of the Saints from the state, we say those utterances were untimely, extreme, and unwise. So indeed they were. The speaker seems to have thrown discretion to the winds, and in the fervor of his rhetoric made threats of retaliation on behalf of the Saints, if assailed, that went beyond all bounds of reason and humanity, and proved a very damaging as also a very potent factor against the Saints in the subsequent movements of their enemies against them. But while this oratorical outburst against injustice was unwise, it was a very natural thing. The marvel is not that it came at the time it did, but that it did not come earlier, more vehemently, and that some of the things it threatened were not effectively carried out. What the Prophet thought, and how he felt respecting the repeated acts of injustice heaped upon himself and the Saints in Missouri; how he felt and what he proposed for the future is made clear in his journal entry for September 1st, 1838; and, fortunately, is more temperately expressed than in the oration of July the fourth. He said: "There is great excitement at present among the Missourians, who are seeking if possible an occasion against us. They are continually chafing us, and provoking us to anger if possible, one sign of threatening after another, but we do not fear them, for the Lord God, the Eternal Father is our God, and Jesus the Mediator is our Savior, and in the great I Am is our strength and confidence.