CHAPTER XVIII.

With the jubilant Saints at Quincy the prophet could not remain long.  He journeyed up the banks of the Mississippi.  Here and there communities of his people welcomed him with touching joy; their numbers and their faithfulness must have raised his heart.  He came at last to a poor, sickly locality, around which the great river took a majestic sweep, and here the prophet saw what no one else had seen—­a site of great beauty and advantage.  The inhabitants were dying of malarial fever.  Smith bought their lands at a low price and drained them.  Thus arose the beautiful city of Nauvoo.

In the Illinois State Legislature two parties were nearly equal in strength, and both coveted the Mormon vote.  When Smith applied for the city charter, for charters also for a university and a force of militia to be called “The Nauvoo Legion,” they were granted, and worded to his will.

White limestone, found in great abundance near the surface of the earth, served as material for the public buildings and the better houses.  Wooden houses, and even log huts, were washed with white lime.  On three sides of the town the air of the beautiful river blew fresh and cool from its rippling tide; the surrounding land was fertile.  Fortune certainly smiled upon the sect that had borne itself so sturdily under persecution.  The prophet’s laws had much to do with the prosperity; neither strong drink nor tobacco were admitted within the city limit; cleanliness and thrift were enforced.

The Saints in settlement in the town of Quincy and other places remained while they could obtain lucrative employment and thus transmit the larger tithes for the building up of their future home; but from the poorer settlements artisans and farmers flocked to Nauvoo.  Thither also the missionaries scattered in the eastern States, in England, and in further Europe sent the bands of converts who had been kept waiting till a city of refuge was founded.  It was not long, not many months, before fifteen thousand people were hurrying up and down the broad streets of the new city.

During the rise of Nauvoo, Emma Smith was living at Quincy in a small house with her three children.  She was Susannah’s best neighbour.  The prophet’s enormous activity was fully occupied with the new city and the care of the scattered Church, so that he could not visit his wife often.  Each time he came he sent for Susannah to listen with Emma to the triumphant accounts that he gave of his present successes.  He was all aglow with the resurrection of his Church, tender towards its renewed enthusiasm for himself, compassionate more than ever for the pains it had endured; fixed in purpose to establish his suffering and loyal people in such a manner as might reward them for all that they had undergone.  His spirit of revenge against the Gentiles, and especially against the perverts from his own sect who had sought