The meeting between Joseph and Oliver and the Elders with each was a very happy one. For nine months they had been separated and now they were united again, a thousand miles from where they parted. They saw one another full of faith and zeal for the progress of the Lord's work, and they wept with joy. They stood upon the land of Zion, and realized that it was holy ground, for here the new Jerusalem, the celestial city, shall be built. They looked upon it, too, as the immediate gathering place of the Saints and rejoiced at its goodliness. The land was a prairie of deep, fertile soil and covered with a fragrant and many-colored growth of flowers. Along the edges of the streams, timber in great abundance and variety grew, and scattered among this was an underbrush and shrubbery that bore grapes, nuts, crab-apples, persimmons and berries of all kinds. The land was indeed beautiful, and was a fit gathering place for the Saints. By their industry they would, if unmolested, build up a great civilization there and make it indeed a Zion. The future seemed very bright. Joseph and his companions knew that the Lord had promised the land to His people as an eternal inheritance, but fortunately they did not know of the deeds of violence, the murders and awful crimes to be committed there before the Saints should build the holy city of peace. August 2, 1831, under Joseph's direction, Sidney Rigdon dedicated the land of Zion by prayer as the gathering place of the Saints, and at the same time twelve men, in honor of the twelve tribes of Israel, carried and set in place a log for the first house to be built there. This was twelve miles west of Independence, about where Kansas City, Missouri, now stands. On the following day Joseph dedicated the spot where the temple is to be built, a little west of Independence. Eight men were present. The fifth conference of the Church was held, as the Lord had promised, in the land of Zion. It was on the 4th of August. The congregation was made up mainly of the Saints who had come from Colesville, New York, led by Newel Knight. On August 9th, the Prophet and ten Elders set out down the Missouri river in canoes, but on the third day Elder W. W. Phelps, saw Satan in a frightful form riding on the waters, and it was revealed to Joseph that they should not trust themselves on the river but travel on land. In company with Oliver Cowdery and Sidney Rigdon the Prophet reached Kirtland, August 27th, having been absent a little over two months and having traveled two thousand miles, much of the distance on foot. CHAPTER XIV. 1831-1832. THE TWO STAKES--JOSEPH LIVES AT HIRAM--M'LELLIN TRIES TO WRITE A REVELATION AND FAILS--THE APOSTATE, BOOTH, STIRS UP HATRED--JOSEPH TARRED AND FEATHERED.