150 years ago
President Brigham Young and the Quorum of the Twelve approved a Feb. 28, 1846, letter to the governor of Iowa requesting protection for the Saints as they passed through the state, according to History of the Church 7:601.
"The time is at hand, in which several thousand free citizens of this great Republic, are to be driven from their peaceful homes and firesides, their property and farms, and their dearest constitutional rights - to wander in the barren plains and sterile mountains of western wilds, and linger out their lives in wretched exile far beyond the pale of professed civilization; or else be exterminated upon their own lands by the people and authorities of the state of Illinois. . . .
"Therefore, we, the presiding authorities of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as a committee in behalf of several thousand suffering exiles, humbly ask your Excellency to shield and protect us in our constitutional rights, while we are passing through the territory over which you have jurisdiction."
Quote from the past
"The various pains and sorrows to be endured in life are all necessary in their time and place; the trials, as we term them, are all necessary in their place, they are all a part of the scheme of education or training to prepare us for the future." - Elder Erastus Snow, in an address given in October 1879 at Brigham City, Utah.
