such another leader as yourself, to attempt to defy or outrage your country and its institutions, remember that you would be the first man to crush them, as you crushed Sidney Rigdon at Nauvoo! What you would yourself do as President, will be done by the President, should occasion require such energy and action. To oppose the government is to expose yourself; to oppose it so far as to shed blood, is to bring the blood that may be shed on your own hands and head. Wisdom should dictate caution, and caution would advise the renunciation of wild and impracticable schemes, which can only end in confusion, and involve the ruin of simple and devoted thousands.
Not alone could you prevent such ruin, but you could accomplish much good; and, instead of being remembered as only a curse to your race, leave some gleam of a better heart and a sounder mind. Your position would enable you to accomplish much toward the advancement of the interests of your country and the consummation of human progress. That you have energy sufficient to arrest and break up the whole system of Mormon politics, that you could quell the disturbance and control the shock which would ensue from such an attempt, that you could divert the attention and direct the power of your followers into a far higher and more rational pursuits, I do not for a moment doubt. That you have not sufficient moral strength to attempt it, I know. The most the world can hope and ask from you is to save yourself, and spare your believers from the suffering and destruction consequent on the struggle to which you are endeavoring to incite them. I will say nothing to you of the wickedness or of the treason of your effort to establish such a kingdom in
