The spark came. It came in the destruction of the _Nauvoo Expositor,_ published by the above mentioned coterie of apostates. It was the intention of the _Expositor,_ as its name would indicate, to make an _expose_ of alleged conditions in Nauvoo, in the moral, social, religious and political phase of them. Also to agitate for the _"unconditional repeal of the Nauvoo Charter."_ This was a challenge to mortal combat, the issue being the life of the city of Nauvoo; and after that the question of the existence of the Church in Illinois, or even within the confines of the United States; for undoubtedly the city charter once repealed, carrying with it the disorganization of the Legion, protection for the Saints, as matters stood in 1844, both civil and military, would be gone. It was a life and death struggle then that the advent of the _Expositor_ inaugurated. The Saints stood at such disadvantage in the proposed contest that if the _Expositor_ was allowed to run its course it would inevitably have won its case against the city; and against the Church, so far as the latter continuing in Illinois, and perhaps as far as its continuance in the United States was concerned. The new marriage system, involving the practice, within certain limitations and under very special conditions, of a plurality of wives, constituted a ground of appeal to popular prejudices and passions that would have been absolutely resistless if the paper had been allowed to proceed. The charter would have been repealed; the city government destroyed, or at the least modified and placed in the hands of an apostate or anti-Mormon minority whose administration would have been intolerable to the large majority of Nauvoo's citizens; and finally the {XXXVIII} scenes of Missouri would have been re-enacted in an Illinois setting. In the presence of such difficulties, what was to be done? In addition to declaring the existence of the practice of plural marriage, not yet announced or publicly taught as a doctrine of the Church, and agitating for the unqualified repeal of the Nauvoo charter, gross immoralities were charged against leading citizens which doubtless rendered the paper grossly libelous. In other cities such an avowed enemy as the _Expositor_ was, would have been destroyed by a mob. For the people of Nauvoo to have so proceeded would have been a departure from their principles of upholding law and order, and would have brought upon them the people of the surrounding counties, and from Missouri in overwhelming numbers. Mob violence could not be thought of; and yet the safety of the community imperatively demanded the suppression of the _Expositor_ at any cost.