On the 4th of August a conference was held at the house of Joshua Lewis, in Kaw Township, Jackson County, among the Colesville saints. This was the conference that was appointed to convene by the revelation received on the 7th of June, directing the elders to go westward in search of Zion. Thus the work of building up the center place of Zion was commenced, and although the commencement was humble in the extreme, the final result shall be the erection of a city that shall be the crowning glory of the western world--a city from which shall go forth the law of the Lord unto all nations, for it is written: "The law shall go forth from Zion." [C] [Footnote C: Isaiah 2:3.] It shall be a city of refuge, for the Lord has said that "every man that will not take his sword against his neighbor, must needs flee unto Zion for safety." [D] [Footnote D: Doc. & Cov. Sec. 45:68.] The wicked will consider her inhabitants terrible, while the righteous out of every nation will come unto her with songs of everlasting joy in their hearts.[E] [Footnote E: Doc. & Cov. Sec. 45:69-71.] CHAPTER IV. THE LAND AND THE CITY. The land in which the city of Zion is to be built will ever be of interest to the saints, and I therefore give the following description of that section of Missouri. The Missouri River, though flowing east in the main, takes a meandering course through the State to which it has given its name. The "river bottom" is a low strip of land on either bank of the stream, and varies in width from a few hundred yards to several miles. The character of the soil in the bottom is, of course, alluvial, and very fertile. The Missouri is said to be a "treacherous stream" by the people living on its banks. By that they mean it frequently changes its channel. Several places were pointed out to me, as I passed down it, that used to be the main channel of the stream; but which are now overgrown with trees, underbrush, and fields of waving corn; while here and there the stream is cutting its banks, and mass after mass of sandy, alluvial deposit of former times is caving in--the river is cutting for itself a new channel--or moving obstructions from an old one in which it flowed ages ago. But however often the Missouri may change its banks, the main stream never leaves the river bottoms, for the reason that these bottoms are walled in by the "bluffs." The word bluff naturally suggests to the mind rugged cliffs rising almost perpendicularly from the bottoms to dizzy heights--but such are not the bluffs of the Missouri. While occasionally one may see a bold cliff rising from the water's edge, yet they are not numerous. The Missouri bluffs are sharp, rolling hills that run parallel with the river on either side, and are usually timbered. They vary in width, sometimes extending ten or fifteen miles, and then again narrowed down to a few hundred yards by some patch of prairie that approaches very nearly to the river bank.