"As for your leaders, do not think, do not imagine for a moment, do not let it enter into your minds, that they shall be delivered and restored to you again for their fate is fixed, their die is cast. Their doom is sealed. I am sorry, very sorry, gentlemen, to see so many intelligent men found in this situation. Oh! if I could invoke the Great Spirit, the unknown God--[I suppose without body, parts or passions]--to rest upon and deliver you from that awful chain of superstition, and liberate you from those fetters of fanaticism with which you are bound, that you no longer do homage to a man! My advice is that you become as other citizens, let by a recurrence of these events you bring upon yourselves irretrievable ruin." It vividly recurs to my mind that at the closing of General Clark's hard talk, G. M. Hinkle also spoke to the large body of Saints, saying: "I would advise you all to do as I have done, for I have got my hand out of the lion's mouth, and I intend to keep it out hereafter." It may not be out of place to relate a statement made to me by E. B. Tripp, who authorizes me to use his name, regarding George M. Hinkle, whose hand he said was out of the lion's mouth (taking his own word for it.) Elder. E. B. Tripp says: "In 1852, I lived in Wapelo, Louisa Co., Iowa G. M. Hinkle, a stranger to me, came into my drug store. He introduced himself to me, saying: 'This is Mr. Tripp, I understand. I hear that you are going to Utah, and I would like to have a private talk with you. I am the man who betrayed Joseph Smith and others into the hands of the mob in Missouri. I am a miserable man, and scarce know what to do with myself. I would be willing to lay down my life if this would atone for the sin I committed. What can I do, Mr. Tripp, for I know Mormonism is true?" This is the substance of the conversation as reported by Brother Tripp, who save him some good advice before he parted with him. Thomas B. Marsh, one of the Twelve Apostles, apostatized during this dark hour of Missouri persecution. I saw him and heard him speak then, and also when he came to Utah and was rebaptized. I heard him confess with deep regret, saying: "Look at my trembling limbs and see the fate of an apostate, for I am a wreck, but Mormonism is true, and I advise you not to do as I have done, in my apostasy." Gen. John C. Bennett, who once flourished in Nauvoo, apostatized because of his iniquities. He died in Polk City, Iowa, a miserable wreck, debased and degraded. When I was in Iowa on a mission I learned of a party who once had a rope around his neck and over a limb. At that time he barely escaped being hung up like a dog. Prior to Joseph and Hyrum Smith, and others, being marched to Liberty jail, General Lucas allowed the prisoners to see for a few moments, in the presence of their guards, their weeping wives and children. Most of them were not permitted to speak, being merely allowed to look at them before being hurried away.