NAUVOO THE BEAUTIFUL—EVENTS THERE DURING THE YEAR 1840—RENEWAL OF OUTRAGES BY THE MISSOURIANS—DEATH OF THE PROPHET'S FATHER AND EDWARD PARTRIDGE—RETURN OF WILLIAMS AND PHELPS—JOSEPH'S HOPE FOR HIS CITY— DEMAND BY GOVERNOR BOGGS FOR THE PROPHET AND HIS BRETHREN.  
A general conference was held at Nauvoo on the 6th day of April, 1840, at which Joseph presided and gave much instruction. Frederick G. Williams came before the congregation and humbly asked forgiveness for his former wrong-doing; he expressed a determination to do the will of God, and the Church forgave him and received him into fellowship.
 
Commerce was officially recognized as Nauvoo by the post office department on the 21st day of April, 1840. It was growing into the dignity of a town. In a year after the first settlement of the Saints there, two hundred and fifty houses had been built. The region was becoming more healthful; and the Saints were achieving prosperity. It is not the least of the miracles connected with this work that the people have so often and so quickly risen from the ashes of their homes.
 
On the 27th day of May, 1840, the faithful Bishop Edward Partridge, the first Bishop in the Church, died at Nauvoo, aged forty-six years.
 
Joseph bore this testimony concerning him:
 
He lost his life in consequence of the Missouri persecutions; and is one of that number whose blood will be required at the hands of his persecutors.
 
In June of this year, William W. Phelps made humble confession of his wrong-doing and begged the fellowship of the Prophet and the Saints. This event and the return of Frederick G. Williams were most gratifying to Joseph, because Elders Williams and Phelps before their fall had occupied a large place in his affections.
 
Through the season of 1840, many stakes were organized in different parts of the country.
 
On the 7th day of July, four brethren, James Allred, Noah Rogers, Alanson Brown and Benjamin Boyce, were kidnapped at Nauvoo by a large party of Missourians and carried over the river. Before they were able to escape, they were almost murdered. After much agony they got loose from their chains and returned home. This event showed that the mobocratic spirit was not dead. No excuse existed for the crime; the men kidnapped were not even accused of any offense by their captors. The barbarous deed was the precursor of a larger movement. A meeting was held immediately at Nauvoo to protest against the renewal of such outrages, and to appeal to the executive of the state of Illinois for redress for this injury and protection from further wrong.
 
On Monday, the 14th day of September, 1840, Joseph Smith, Sen., Patriarch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the father of the Prophet, died at Nauvoo from the effect of exposure and privation during the Missouri persecutions.
 
The Prophet says of him:
 
He was the first person who received my testimony after I had seen the angel, and exhorted me to be faithful and diligent to the message I had received. He was baptized April 6th, 1830.
 
In August, 1830, in company with my brother Don Carlos, he took a mission to St. Lawrence County, New York, touching on his route at several of the Canadian ports, where he distributed a few copies of the Book of Mormon, visited his father, brothers and sister, residing in St. Lawrence County, bore testimony to the truth, which resulted eventually in all the family coming into the Church, except his brother Jesse and sister Susan.
 
He removed with his family to Kirtland in 1831; was ordained Patriarch and President of the High Priesthood, under the hands of Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, Frederick G. Williams and myself, on the 18th of December, 1833; was a member of the first high council, organized on the 17th of February, 1834 (when he confirmed on me and my brother Samuel H., a father's blessing).
 
In 1836 he traveled in company with his brother John 2,400 miles in Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont and New Hampshire, visiting the branches of the Church in those states, and bestowing patriarchal blessings on several hundred persons, preaching the gospel to all who would hear, and baptizing many. They arrived at Kirtland on the 2nd of October, 1836.
 
During the persecutions in Kirtland in 1837, he was made a prisoner, but fortunately obtained his liberty, and after a very tedious journey in the spring and summer of 1838, he arrived at Far West, Missouri.
 
After I and my brother Hyrum were thrown into the Missouri jails by the mob, he fled from under the exterminating order of Governor Lilburn W. Boggs, and made his escape in mid-winter to Quincy, Illinois, from whence he removed to Commerce in the spring of 1839.
 
The exposures he suffered brought on consumption, of which he died on this 14th day of September, 1840, aged sixty-nine years, two months, and two days. He was six feet, two inches high, was very straight, and remarkably well proportioned. His ordinary weight was about two hundred pounds, and he was very strong and active. In his young days he was famed as a wrestler, and, Jacob-like, he never wrestled with but one man whom he could not throw. He was one of the most benevolent of men, opening his house to all who were destitute. While at Quincy, Illinois, he fed hundreds of the poor Saints who were flying from the Missouri persecutions, although he had arrived there penniless himself.
 
On the 3rd day of October, 1840, a conference was held at Nauvoo at which it was decided to build a house of the Lord in that city and that the Saints each give every tenth day of labor to the erection of the holy edifice. At the conference, an address from the Prophet and his counselors was presented to the Church, in which brief reference is made to the changes within the two years then just past. The communication says:
 
We feel rejoiced to meet the Saints at another General Conference, and under circumstances as favorable as the present. Since our settlement in Illinois we have for the most part been treated with courtesy and respect, and a feeling of kindness and of sympathy has generally been manifested by all classes of the community, who, with us deprecate the conduct of those men whose dark and blackening deeds are stamped with everlasting infamy and disgrace. The contrast between our past and present situation is great. Two years ago mobs were threatening, plundering, driving and murdering the Saints. Our burning houses enlightened the canopy of heaven. Our women and children, houseless and destitute, had to wander from place to place to seek a shelter from the rage of persecuting foes. Now we enjoy peace, and can worship the God of heaven and earth without molestation, and expect to be able to go forward and accomplish the great and glorious work to which we have been called.
 
Under these circumstances we feel to congratulate the Saints of the Most High, on the happy and pleasing change in our circumstances, condition and prospects, and which those who shared in the perils and distresses, undoubtedly appreciate; while prayers and thanksgivings daily ascend to that God who looked upon our distresses and delivered us from danger and death, and whose hand is over us for good.
 
The Prophet saw a grand city of Nauvoo to rise in the near future; and his vision and hope were fulfilled.
 
Ascending the upper Mississippi in the autumn, when its waters were low, I was compelled to travel by land past the region of the Rapids. * * * My eye wearied to see everywhere sordid, vagabond and idle settlers, and a country marred, without being improved, by their careless hands. I was descending the last hillside upon my journey when a landscape in delightful contrast broke upon my view. Half encircled by a bend of the river, a beautiful city lay glittering in the fresh morning sun; its bright, new dwellings, set in cool green gardens, ranging up around a stately dome-shaped hill, which was covered by a noble marble edifice, whose high tapering spire was radiant with white and gold. The city appeared to cover several miles; and beyond it, in the back-ground, there rolled off a fair country, chequered by the careful lines of fruitful husbandry. The unmistakable marks of industry, enterprise and educated wealth everywhere, made the scene one of singular and most striking beauty.
 
This is what Colonel, afterwards Major-General, Thomas L. Kane thought of Nauvoo when his eyes rested upon it from a distance in 1846, only seven years after the purchase by the Saints of the marshy ground upon which the city stood. It partially shows how well the Prophet and his fellow-laborers had been able to fulfill his high hopes of the city's destiny. For the Prophet did have a definite and exalted plan for Nauvoo. It was his purpose, under the direction of the Almighty, to make this a fit abiding place for the Saints of the Most High; not only a place where ............