The Prophet a Model of Perfect Manhood--Apostasy of Men who had been his Friends--Christmas Day--The Prophet a Candidate for the Presidency of the United States--Prediction Concerning the Saints--The Work of his Enemies CHAPTER XXXVIII. The Plot of an Apostate--The Publication of the Nauvoo "Expositor"--Declared a Nuisance and Abated as such--Joseph's Last Public Speech--He and his Brother Hyrum leave Nauvoo--Return to the City--"I am Going Like a Lamb to the Slaughter" CHAPTER XXXIX. Under the Governor's Pledge of Protection Joseph and His Brethren go to Carthage--Arrested and Imprisoned--Occurrences at Carthage--Plot to Murder the Prophet--Governor Ford's Cowardice and Treachery CHAPTER XL. The Prisoners in Carthage Jail--Surrounded by a Mob with Painted Faces--The Martyrdom--The Return to Nauvoo--Funeral and Burial--Conclusion THE LATTER-DAY PROPHET. YOUNG PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF JOSEPH SMITH. CHAPTER I. 1805-20. BIRTHPLACE OF THE PROPHET JOSEPH SMITH--HIS ANCESTOR--REMOVAL TO NEW YORK STATE--A RELIGIOUS REVIVAL. It was two days before Christmas in the year eighteen hundred and five, and cold winter had already set in. The Green Mountains of Vermont were white with the snow that had fallen, and now it lay also in the valleys and upon the level land. It was the season when men celebrate the birth of our Savior, and they felt in their hearts the gladness and peace that come with Christmas tide. Twenty miles east of the Green Mountains, on the White River, a branch of the Connecticut, lies the little town of Sharon. To a humble family living there, came additional joy that day. A son was born, and, though they knew it not, he was destined to be very great. He was not the first-born, two sons and a daughter had come before; but none the less did his parents welcome him. They gave him his father's name--Joseph Smith--a good name and never tarnished by an evil deed, but one to be known for both good and evil through all the world. The boy came of goodly parentage. The Smiths, since Robert and Mary settled in Essex, Massachusetts, a century and a half before, had been honorable farmers. Lucy Mack, the mother, was also of a family of industrious land-owners. Members of both families had fought for their country. The father and mother of the boy, Joseph and Lucy, when they were married in 1796, and for a few years afterward, had been well-to-do, but had lost all in paying the debts brought upon them by the fraud of a trusted agent. They had left their home in Tunbridge, Vermont, and moved to Sharon in the adjoining county of Windsor. Here the father farmed in the summer and taught school in the winter. But little success came as the reward of his industry. He tried other places and at length, in the year 1815, he left the Green Mountain state entirely and moved his family to New York.