I have also related the circumstance of his lingering to look at his farm as he left Nauvoo for the last time, and clearly intimated that he would never see it again. But notwithstanding these very plain intimations concerning his approaching death, the Saints apparently could not comprehend them. They did not sense them; and when his death so sudden and pitiful did come, it scarcely seemed possible to them that it had taken place. They were unprepared for it, and, as I say, were now like sheep without a shepherd. Sidney Rigdon, the Prophet's first counselor, was in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. He had removed from Nauvoo to Pittsburg, notwithstanding in a revelation [2] from God he had been required to make his home in Nauvoo, and stand in his office and calling of counselor and spokesman to the Prophet. The truth is that from the expulsion of the Saints from Missouri in 1838-9, Sidney Rigdon had been of but little service either to the Church or to the Prophet as a counselor. He was a man of admitted ability as an orator, but lacked discretion; a man of fervid imagination, but of inferior judgment; ambitious of place and honor, but without that steadiness of purpose and other qualities of soul which in time secure them. In the early years of The Church he suffered much for the cause of God, but he also complained much; especially was this the case in respect to the hardships endured in Missouri, and subsequently of his poverty and illness at Nauvoo. This habit of complaining doubtless did much to deprive him of the Spirit of the Lord; for at times it bordered upon blasphemy. More than once he was heard to say that Jesus Christ was a fool in suffering as compared with himself! Having lost, in part at least, the Spirit of the Lord, his interest in The Church and its work waned, and after the settlement at Nauvoo he was seldom seen in the councils of the Priesthood. Moreover, it was known that he was in sympathy and even in communication with some of the avowed enemies of Joseph, among others with that arch traitor, John C. Bennett, who was plotting the overthrow of both Joseph and The Church. It was doubtless these considerations which led Joseph to make an effort to get rid of Sidney Rigdon as counselor at the October conference in 1843.