Elder Taylor in an editorial in the _Neighbor_ of July 5th 1843, thus deals with the course pursued by Missouri in these several instances of persecution against the Prophet: "It has fallen to our lot of late years to keep an account of any remarkable circumstances that might transpire in and about this and adjoining states; as well as of distant provinces and nations. Among the many robberies, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tornadoes, fires, mobs, wars, etc., which we have had to record, there is one circumstance of annual occurrence which it has always fallen to our lot to chronicle. We allude not to the yearly inundation of the Nile, nor the frequent eruptions of Vesuvius or AEtna, but to the boiling over of Tophet, _alias_ the annual overflow of the excrescence of Missouri. Not indeed, like the Nile, over-flowing its parched banks, invigorating its alluvial soil and causing vegetation to teem forth in its richest attire; but like the sulphurous flame that burns unnoticed in the bowels of a volcano; kept alive by the combustion of its own native element, until it can contain itself no longer within the limits of its crater; it bursts beyond its natural bounds; spreads its sulphurous lava all around, leaving naught but desolation in its path,--destroying alike the cot of the husbandman, and the palace of the noble, in one grand sweep; covering vegetation with its fiery lava, and turning the garden into a bed of cinders. So Missouri has her annual ebulitions, and must belch forth her sulphurous lava and seek to overwhelm others; and as it happens that we are so unfortunate as to live near the borders of this monster, we must ever and anon, be smutted with the soot that flies off from her burning crater. "Without entering here into the particulars of the bloody deeds, the high-handed oppression, the unconstitutional acts, the deadly and malicious hate, the numerous murders and the wholesale robberies of that people, we will proceed to notice one of the late acts of Missouri, or of the governor of that state, towards us. We allude to the late arrest of Joseph Smith." Then follows an account of the arrests of the Prophet and the manner in which he was released from the officers as already briefly stated in this chapter; he dwells at some length on the events of the last arrest made near Dixon, detailing the cruelty and brutality of the officers. He then concludes: