At this reply many of them seemed astonished, and some inquired who would succeed him, and remarked to me: "Perhaps you will be the man who will now seek to be leader of the Mormons in his stead--who are you, sir?" I replied: "I am a MAN, sir; and a MAN never triumphs and exults in the ruin of his country and the murder of the innocent." This was said in the energy of my soul, and by constraint of the Spirit, and a powerful and peculiar accent was thrown upon the word MAN each time it occurred in the sentence. This served as a sufficient rebuke, and all were silent. Landing in Chicago I found great excitement, and the press had issued extras announcing the triumph of the murderous mob in killing the Smiths. I now hastened on to Peoria, and, staying over night, started next day on foot across the country to Nauvoo--distance 105 miles. During the two or three days I spent in travelling between Chicago and Peoria I felt so weighed down with sorrow and the powers of darkness that it was painful for me to converse or speak to anyone or even to try to eat or sleep. I really felt that if it had been my own family who had died, and our beloved Prophet been spared alive, I could have borne it, and the blow would have fallen on me with far less weight. I had loved Joseph with a warmth of affection indescribable for about fourteen years. I had associated with him in private and in public, in travels and at home, in joy and sorrow, in honor and dishonor, in adversity of every kind. With him I had lain in dungeons and in chains; and with him I had triumphed over all our foes in Missouri, and found deliverance for ourselves and people in Nauvoo, where we had reared a great city. But now he was gone to the invisible world, and we and the Church of the Saints were left to mourn in sorrow and without the presence of our beloved founder and Prophet.