On the night of the thirteenth of November, while large bodies of the saints were still encamped on the Missouri bottoms, exiled from their homes for the gospel's sake, one of the most wonderful meteoric showers occurred that was ever witnessed. The whole heavens and the earth were made brilliant by the streams of light which marked the course of the falling aerolites. The whole upper deep was one vast display of heaven's fireworks. The long trains of light left in the heavens by the meteors would twist into the most fantastic shapes, like writhing serpents. The grandeur of the display was far beyond the power of words to describe. I mention it because of the effect it had upon the minds of the suffering saints. The scriptures teach that one of the signs of the glorious appearing of Jesus Christ shall be the falling of stars from the heaven, as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind; and the shaking of the powers of heaven.[B] [Footnote B: Mark 13:25, 26; also Revelation 6:13-17.] It is needless to say that this sign in the heavens encouraged the exiles; that it revived their hopes; that it calmed their fears; that it seemed to herald the coming of their Deliverer, the Son of God. Nor need I say that it awed the mob, and made a pause in their cruel proceedings for a season. That pause, however, was brief; for on the twenty-third of November the mob held a meeting and appointed a committee to warn away any of the saints who might possibly be found within the borders of the county. Accordingly what few families were scattered here and there through the county were threatened and abused until they were finally forced from their homes. On the twenty-fourth of December four aged families were assaulted at Independence. The mob tore down their chimneys, broke open their doors and threw large stones into their houses. A brother by the name of Miller, sixty-five years of age, and the youngest of the men in the four families, narrowly escaped fatal injuries. A brother Jones, who was also subjected to like inhuman treatment, served as a life-guard to General Washington in the Revolution, and had fought for the establishment of the sacred principles of liberty guaranteed in the Constitution of his country, the free exercise of which was now denied him by a gang of heartless wretches, who had conspired against the liberties of worthy citizens. Some time later in the winter, an old man of about seventy years of age was driven from his house, after which it was thrown down. His household goods, corn, etc., were piled together and set on fire; but, fortunately, after the mob left, his son extinguished the flames. About the same time Lyman Leonard had two chairs broken to splinters over his head and body, and was dragged out of doors, where he was beaten with clubs until he was supposed to be dead. The same day Josiah Sumner and Barnet Cole received the same kind of treatment.[C]