Turning from the work of teaching and instructing the Saints, we find the Prophet and the people taking part in a grand military parade. On the seventh of May the Nauvoo Legion of nearly two thousand men in uniform marched through the streets of Nauvoo to the inspiring strains of music by the militia band and under the leadership of Joseph Smith. The Prophet and the people were fulfilling their obligations to the state by the maintenance and discipline of a militia that did so much to become an honor to the people of Illinois. What they did, they did well, but even this citizens' duty of maintaining a splendid milita was used for the purpose of creating prejudice in the eyes of the people throughout the country. The enemies at home never lost any opportunity to inflame the public mind, and to justify themselves therefore by the consummation of a conspiracy to encompass the life of the Prophet. One day some of the elders found themselves in martial array, the next day in the font baptizing for their kindred dead. All things the faithful sought to do for the honor and glory of God and for the salvation of their souls. On the 22nd of May that year, Elder Woodruff baptized George A. Smith for the restoration of the latter's health. In those days in performing the ordinances for the dead, men were baptized for women, and women for men. Later on, however, the Prophet was shown that in the sacred ordinances of baptism men and women should be baptized for their ancestors, each for his own sex. It seems very remarkable that in view of these temple ordinances men should seek to attribute the origin of these ordinances to Brigham Young. Elder Woodruff, in his journal, records the temple work, unconscious that its practice would ever be questioned in generations to come. On the 18th of June a large congregation of Saints assembled in the grove near the Temple. "To these thousands there assembled," {166} Elder Woodruff says, "Joseph, the prophet, arose and spoke in great plainness upon the corruption and wickedness of John C. Bennett. He also prophesied that if the merchants of the city and the rich did not open their hearts and contribute to the poor they would be cursed by the hand of God and cut off from the land of the living." The words of the Prophet were fulfilled. There had been organized an agricultural and manufacturing society in view of giving aid to the poor. On the 24th of June that year there was a meeting of the Nauvoo Masonic Lodge for the celebration of St. John. A number of the leading men of the Church took part, and Sidney Rigdon delivered an appropriate address. All efforts to stand upon a common ground with the citizens generally of Nauvoo were, however, unavailing. John C. Bennett, who had been cut off the Church, became vindictive and took advantage of the political conditions to create an agitation abroad against the Saints.