| 582 But favorable as the statement of Elder Law is, it is not more complimentary to their industry, good government, and morality than is a statement made by the Rev. Mr. Prior, of the Methodist Church, who visited Nauvoo in 1843. 12
Where is there another community of thirty thousand, in any State, against none of whom there is a record of conviction for crime in any court during the space of three years? And yet there are those who cry out "Treason! murder! bigamy! burglary! arson!" and everything that is evil, without being able to refer to a single case that has ever been proved against the Mormons.
This, then, must be the "head and front of our offending," that by industry in both spiritual and temporal things we are becoming a great and numerous people, we convert our thousands and tens of thousands yearly to the light of truth-to the glorious liberty of the gospel of Christ; we bring thousands from foreign lands, from under the yoke of oppression, and the iron hand of poverty, and we place them in a situation where they can sustain themselves, which is the highest act of charity towards the poor. We dry the widow's tear, we fill the orphan's hand with bread, and clothe the naked; we teach them the principles of morality and righteousness, and they rejoice in the God of Abraham, and in the Holy One of Israel, and are happy.
Thus it is with the honest in heart; but when the wicked creep in amongst us for evil, to trample upon the most holy and virtuous precepts and find our moral and religious laws too strict for them, they cry out, "Delusion, false prophets, speculation, oppression, illegal ordinances usurpation of power, treason against the government, etc. You must have your charters taken away; you have dared to pass an ordinance against fornicators and adulterers; you have forbid the vending of spirituous liquors within your city; you have passed an ordinance against vagrants and disorderly persons; with many other high-handed acts. You even threaten to vote at the next election, and maybe (at least we fear) you will send a member to the legislature; none of which doings we, the good mobocrats and anti-Mormon politicians (and some priests as well) are willing to bear."
This is the cry of the base and vile, the priest and the speculator, but the noble, the high-minded, the patriotic, and the virtuous breathe no such sentiments; neither will those who feel an interest in the welfare of the State; for who does not know that to increase the population ten thousand a year with the most industrious people in the world, to pay thousands of dollars of taxes, to bring into the State immense sums of gold and silver from all countries, to establish the greatest manufacturing city in America (which Nauvoo will be in a few years), and to create the best produce market in the West, is for the good and prosperity of the community at large, and of the State of Illinois in particular. As to the city ordinances, we have passed all such as we deemed necessary for the peace, welfare, and happiness of the inhabitants, whether Jew or Greek, Mohammedan, Roman Catholic, Latter Day Saint, or any other; that they all worship God according to their own conscience, and enjoy the rights of American freemen.
WILLIAM LAW.
Nauvoo, June 17, 1842.
-Millennial Star, vol. 19, pp. 485, 486.
12 At length the city burst upon my sight. Instead of seeing a few miserable log cabins and mud hovels, which I had expected to find, I
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