Yours sincerely, ORSON HYDE. Elder Pratt's best respects to the brethren. An event soon afterwards took place in the House of Representatives before the Prophet's petition was introduced, which put at rest all hopes of Congress doing anything at that time in relation to the Oregon territory. A resolution was introduced giving Great Britain notice that the treaty of joint occupancy of that country was at an end, but it was promptly voted down. That virtually served public notice that the Oregon question was not to be reopened by Congress, at least not until the conclusion of the presidential election. Sufficient may be gathered from what is set down in the above, to prove that the mind of the Prophet Joseph was bent on establishing his people in the West--somewhere in the Rocky Mountains--so soon as they could complete the temple. The subject began to take possession of his mind wholly. Some eighteen months before his formal appeal to Congress, for the privilege of settling with his people in the far West, under the protecting aegis of the general government, _viz_., on the sixth of August, 1842, he prophesied, that his people would continue to suffer much persecution, and at last be driven to the Rocky Mountains. This is the prophecy as it stands in the Prophet's journal: Saturday, sixth, [August]. Passed over the river to Montrose, Iowa, in company with General Adams, Colonel Brewer, and others, and witnessed the installation of the officers of the Rising Sun Lodge, of Ancient York Masons, at Montrose, by General James Adams, Deputy Grand Master of Illinois. While the Deputy Grand Master was engaged in giving the requisite instruction to the Master elect, I had a conversation with a number of brethren in the shade of the building on the subject of our persecutions in Missouri, and the constant annoyance which has followed us since we were driven from that State. I prophesied that the Saints would continue to suffer much affliction and would be driven to the Rocky Mountains, many would apostatize, others would be put to death by our persecutors, or lose their lives in consequence of exposure or disease, and some of you will live to go and assist in making settlements and build cities, and see the Saints become a mighty people in the midst of the Rocky Mountains. [1]--_Millennial Star, Vol. xix, page 630_. As persecution in Illinois grew more relentless, and mobocrats more bold, until the whole horizon appeared black, and threatening with hatred toward the citizens of Nauvoo, the Prophet told them repeatedly it was "light in the west." Footnotes 1. See the author's work, "Succession in the Presidency," where the subject is more exhaustively considered. CHAPTER XXXV. THE STANDARD OF PEACE.