The appearance of this sheet created the greatest excitement among the Mormon leaders that they had experienced since leaving Missouri. They recognized in it immediately a mouthpiece of men who were better informed than Bennett, and who were ready to address an audience composed both of their own flock and of their outlying non-Mormon neighbors, whose antipathy to them was already manifesting itself aggressively. To permit the continued publication of this sheet meant one of those surrenders which Smith had never made. The prophet therefore took just such action as would have been expected of him in the circumstances. Calling a meeting of the City Council, he proceeded to put the Expositor and its editors on trial, as if that body was of a judicial instead of a legislative character. The minutes of this trial, which lasted all of Saturday, June 8, and a part of Monday, June l0, 1844, can be found in the Neighbor of June 19, of that year, filling six columns. The prophet-mayor occupied the chair, and the defendants were absent. The testimony introduced aimed at the start to break down the characters of Dr. Foster, Higbee, and the Laws. A mechanic testified that the Laws had bought "bogus"--(counterfeit) dies of him. The prophet told how William Law had "pursued" him to recover $40,000 that Smith owed him. Hyrum Smith alleged that William Law had offered to give a man $500 if he would kill Hyrum, and had confessed adultery to him, making a still more heinous charge against Higbee. Hyrum referred "to the revelation of the High Council of the church, which has caused so much talk about a multiplicity of wives," and declared that it "concerned things which transpired in former days, and had no reference to the present time." Testimony was also given to show that the Laws were not liberal to the poor, and that William's motto with his fellow-churchmen who owed him was, "Punctuality, punctuality."* This was naturally a serious offence in the eyes of the Smiths. * The Expositor contained this advertisement: "The subscribers wish to inform all those who, through sickness or other misfortunes, are much limited is their means of procuring bread for their families, that we have allotted Thursday of every week to grind toll free for them, till grain becomes plentiful after harvest.--W. & W. Law." The prophet declared that the conduct of such men, and of such papers as the Expositor, was calculated to destroy the peace of the city. He unblushingly asserted that what he had preached about marriage only showed the order in ancient days, having nothing to do with the present time. In regard to the alleged revelation about polygamy he explained that, on inquiring of the Lord concerning the Scriptural teaching that "they neither marry nor are given in marriage in heaven," he received a reply to the effect that men in this life must marry in one of eternity, otherwise they must remain as angels, or be single in heaven.