The Troubles at Nauvoo.
We begin almost to fear that the terrible scenes of cruelty, devastation of peaceful homes and in-discriminate hunting down of men, women and children, which disgraced Missouri a few years since during the expulsion of the Mormons from that State, are to be reenacted in Illinois. The history of those deeds has never been, and prob-ably never will be, written ; but enough of their atrocities has been heard from casual recitals of eye and ear witnesses to make the soul sicken with horror at their contemplation. We are not the apologists of Joe Smith, or of the mummeries of Mormonism; we are ready to admit that the existence of that sect, in the shape which it would seem Smith is bent on imparting to it, is fraught with danger, and should be looked to by the proper power; but in the name of common humanity we stand up for the lives and security of helpless wo-menand innocent children. The Executives of Il linois and Missouri have had loud and fair warn ing, by the meetings in Carthage, Warsaw and St. Louis, of the dreadful scheme of arson and assassination that is going on to exterminate the Mormons; and if they permit this monstrous crime of the sacking of a city, the murder of men in cold blood, and the sacrifice of women and children to the demoniac fury of an inflamed mob, they will not, they cannot be held guiltless
There are other means by which the course of the Mormons, if unlawful or destructive of the rights of others, can be restrained and punished ; but even if there be no immediate legal redress, are murder, rapine, desolation, the brand of civil war hurled among those who should be friends and neighbors—are these a suitable substitute for a little time and patience ? Let the citizens of Il-linois look to their votes when next they approach the ballot box, and examine well for whom and for what principles they are cast, and they can restore the Government of their State to hands that will remove their grievances and reassure them in their rights, much, much more speedily than they can rebuild one log hut sacrificed to brutal war, or atone for the blood of a single hu-man victim.
