"We then and there declared our constitutional rights as American citizens, and manifested our determination to resist, with our utmost endeavors, from that time forth, all oppression, and to maintain our rights and freedom, according to the holy principles of liberty as guaranteed to every person by the constitution and laws of our country. "This declaration was received with shouts of hosanna to God and the Lamb, and with many long cheers by the assembled thousands, who were determined to yield their rights no more unless compelled by superior power." Very proper, too were such resolutions of these sons and daughters of sires and mothers who were among the pilgrim founders of this nation, and among the heroes and heroines of the Revolution. But Missouri could not endure this temple-building to the God of Israel, nor these mighty shouts of hosanna to his name; while the all-prevailing faith of the sisters brought more of the angels down from the New Jerusalem than earth just then was prepared to receive. In popular words, this formidable gathering of a modern Israel and this city building within its borders loomed up to Missouri as the rising of a Mormon empire. Soon the State was alive with mobs determined on the extermination of the saints; soon those mobs numbered ten thousand armed men; soon also were they converted into a State army, officered by generals and major-generals, with the governor as the commander-in-chief of a boldly avowed religious crusade, with rival priests as its "inspiring demons." One feature, all worthy of note, in this Hebraic drama of Mormondom, is that while modern Israel was ever in the action inspired by archangels of the new covenant, the anti-Mormon crusade was as constantly inspired by sectarian priests at war with a dispensation of angels. Even the mobber, Captain Comstock, who was bold enough to perpetrate a Haun's Mill massacre, was in consternation over the magic prayers of a few stricken women who honored the God of Israel in the hour of direst calamity. Thus throughout Missouri. And so the exterminating order of Governor Boggs prevailed like the edict of a second Nebuchadnezzar. There was a _Mormon war_ in the State. So it was styled. Mobs were abroad, painted like Indian warriors, committing murder, robbery, burning the homesteads of the saints, and spreading desolation. Next, one thousand men were ordered into service by the Governor, under the command of Major-General Atchison and Brigadier-Generals Park and Doniphan. This force marched against the saints in several counties. A Presbyterian priest, Rev. Sashel Woods, was its chaplain. He said prayers in the camp, morning and evening. 'Twas a godly service in an ungodly crusade, but the Rev. Sashel Woods was equal to it. The Philistines drove modern Israel before them, and their priest prayed Jehovah out of countenance.