“ Many of our brethren we think, are too much elated with our growing numbers and future prospect of complete ascendency in this town. Some of them are not wise, they are not prudent, their deportment towards their enemies is not fraught with that wisdom, that dignity, that nobleness of soul that is calculated to gain them or convince them that we are at all times actuated by that "meek and quiet spirit which is in the sight of God of great price," but, notwithstanding, we have nothing to plead in justification, yet we wish to say a few things in extenuation, but we forbear, God will judge ”

“ But if the withering frosts of age, or wasting hand of disease have impaired your bodily strength, and left you on the declivity of life, too enervated to endure the fatigues and privations incident to a long journey and the settlement of a new country, and this under circumstances so unpropitious; you make up your mind to join the Saints at this place, which God has appointed for a stake of Zion, and the gathering of some of his saints in the last days. ”

“ Let not your confidence be betrayed in the religion you have embraced. Remember that a Peter cursed and swore, and many turned away from the faith who had great manifestations or had been under the instruction of the Redeemer of mankind. ”

“ These and other instances of aberration or complete apostacy, were no evidence that they were deceived in the outset, or that the Devil had the ascendency in the hearts of all the church. We hope and earnestly pray that it will be your end and aim as you come among us, to correct our evil habits, reform our abuses and evil manners, by well ordered lives, and godly conversations, and so demean yourselves as truly to be a terror to evil doers and a praise of them that do well. ”

“ Almost instinctively it catches the Lord's House on a beautiful eminence or table land on the south side of the stream, at an altitude of from 80 to 100 feet from its bed, and at a distance of one-fourth of a mile in a direct line.—The intermediate space, between the river and the Lord's House, is occupied with dwellings, generally small and inelegant, evincive of any thing but wealth, standing in no regular order, but built at a period when the saints had little control, and but feeble means to execute any plan with elegance or taste. ”

“ Therefore, instead of a regular town, village or city, laid out and ornamented with rows of fruit or forest trees, selected for the beauty and luxuriance of their foliage or shade, or for their utility as furnishing articles of food; the eye rests upon rude dwellings scattered in all directions from the river to the Lord's House and south, for the distance of a mile or more.—We have one public inn or tavern, three stores of dry goods kept by our brethren, and two by other people, making five in all, and quite a number of mechanics of different occupations, all of which find constant employ. ”

“ Here are at present, seated some of our first elders of the church; strong men in point of their native intellect and moral courage, who have truly come up thus far, through great tribulation. Some of them have tasted, yea more, they have drank the bitter cup of affliction and sorrows, and have been taught in the severe school of adversity, till the Lord has looked on their affection, as we trust, and said it is enough. ”

“ They would now if in their power, deprive you of the liberty of speech, and consider you, notwithstanding religious sentiment cannot constitutionally be made a test for office, wholly unworthy of any of trust or profit, and your very name, made a hiss and a bye-word, in almost all ranks, from the man in black, to the lowest debauchee of the brothel, or the mendicant upon the dunghill. In all the soberness of truth, you have now become weaned from your former friends, and are, as we will suppose, prepared to leave them. ”

“ They are not yet so assimilated as to become one in any peculiar characteristic, except in matters of religion. All are anxious for the improvement of the place, and each, for individually bettering his condition: Therefore traits of character evinsive [evincive] of selfishness bordering upon covetousness, are often discoverable in their dealings with the world or with each other. ”

“ We come now to the more unpleasant part of our duty, to point out our own follies and faults and expose them to the world, but justice requires it at our hands, we have before said that our society was made up of emigrants from all the different points of the compass, with the different manners, customs and habits of the place from whence they emigrated, to all of which, they respectively adhere with greater or less pertinacity. ”

“ Another, but no uncommon one is, for some one who has conversed with you to misrepresent some item of your faith, and relate the pretended fact to the deacon or priest of his parish in all the glaring deformity his disordered and distorted imagination can paint. ”

“ If they are not more industrious then their neighbors, they are surely as much so; aud [and] their steady perseverance, to overcome every obstacle of an earthly nature, together with that strong propenisity [propensity] that dwells in the hearts of all, to accumulate, would make the world and many of our brethren think, that houses, lands and money were their ultimate objects and this world our everlasting dwelling place. ”