5. Western Missouri (1831).--It was a country whose richness and fertility of soil far surpassed anything which they [the Saints] had ever before seen. It was a country abounding with springs and rivulets of the purest kind of water, whose crystal streams flowed in luxuriant abundance in almost every grove and prairie. A great variety of the most excellent timber bordered upon the rivers and water-courses. These shady and delightful groves were from one to three miles in width, extending many miles in length, while the rich rolling prairies, covered with a gorgeous profusion of wild flowers of every varied hue, lay spread around among the intervening groves. Their grassy surfaces extending for miles, presented the delightful appearance of a sea of meadows. It was a new country; but few inhabitants had as yet formed settlements within its borders. These consisted principally of emigrants from the Southern States.--Orson Pratt. 6. The Temple Site.--Taking the road running west from the court house for a scant half mile, you come to the summit of a crowning hill, the slope of which to the south and west is quite abrupt and very gradual toward the north and east. * * * This is the temple site. It was upon this spot on the third day of August, 1831, that Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Edward Partridge, W. W. Phelps, Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris and Joseph Coe and another person whose name I cannot learn, for there were eight in all--men in whom the Lord was well pleased, assembled to dedicate this place as the {328} temple site in Zion. The eighty-seventh Psalm was read. Joseph [the prophet] then dedicated the spot where is to be built a temple on which the glory of God shall rest. Yea the great God hath so decreed it, saying "Verily, this generation shall not all pass away until an house shall be built unto the Lord, and a cloud shall rest upon it, which cloud shall be even the glory of the Lord, which shall fill the house. * * * And the sons of Moses, and also the sons of Aaron shall offer an acceptable offering and sacrifice in the house of the Lord, which house shall be built unto the Lord in this generation upon the consecrated spot as I have appointed." (Doc. and Cov., sec. lxxxiv: 5, 31.)--Missouri Persecutions--Roberts.