Why should I not be Joseph Smith's friend? He has done nothing to injure me, nor do I believe he has done anything to injure ex-Governor Boggs, of Missouri. The governor, no doubt, under strong feelings, may have thought and believed that Smith had preconcerted the plan for his assassination; but there is no legal evidence whatever of that fact--none by which an unprejudiced jury would convict any man; yet to send this man into Missouri, under the present requisition, would be an act of great injustice, as his ruin would be certain. How could any man, against whom there is a bitter religious prejudice escape ruin, being in the circumstances of Smith? Look at the history of past ages--see the force of fanaticism and bigotry in bringing to the stake some of the best of men; and in all these cases the persecutors had their pretexts, as well as in the case of the Mormon chief. Nothing follows its victim with such deadly aim as religious zeal, and therefore nothing should be so much guarded against by the civil power. Smith, I conceive, has just as good a right to establish a church, if he can do it, as Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Fox, or even King Henry the Eighth. All these chiefs in religion had their opponents, and their people their persecutors. Henry the Eighth was excommunicated, body and bones, soul and all, by his holiness, the Pope; still the church of England has lived as well as all the other sects. Just so it will be with the Mormons. They may kill one prophet and {171} confine in chains half his followers, but another will take his place, and the Mormons will still go ahead. One of their Elders said to me, when conversing on this subject, that they were like a mustard plant,--"If you don't disturb it, the seed will fall and multiply; and if you kick it about, you only give the seed more soil, and it will multiply the more." Undertake to convince them that they are wrong, and that Smith is an impostor, and the answer is, laying the hand on the heart, "I know in my own soul that it is true, and want no better evidence: I feel happy in my faith; and why should I be disturbed?" Now, I cannot see but what this is the sentiment that governs all religiously disposed persons, their object being heaven and happiness, no matter what their church and creed. They, therefore, cannot be put down while the Constitution of the United States offers them protection in common with all other sects, and while they believe that their eternal salvation is at stake. From what I know of the people, I fully believe that all the real, sincere Mormons would die sooner than abandon their faith and their religion.