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Show Page 66 bankrupting one of "Joe Smith's prophecies." The night before the sacred day, Brigham Young and the others rode into the city; though it was nearly abandoned, they found lodging at the home of an imprisoned brother. The moon still shone clear when they emerged in the public square to hold the conference commanded by the revelation of July 8, 1838. "All seemed still as death," Kimball wrote, but the active threats of the locals to keep the revelation from fulfillment went unrealized. Without disturbance, they opened the council by solemnly excommunicating thirty-one apostates - among them three of their own quorum. A hymn was sung, "The Mission of the Twelve." Alpheus Cutler then helped the apostles to roll the foundation stone, a ton in weight, to the sacred southeast corner of the temple site. To the five apostles present, two more were then added by ordination - Wilford Woodruff and George Albert Smith - forming thereby a majority of the Council of Twelve. Each apostle offered prayer, and then from this sacramental site, which represented to the Mormon people the land of Zion, the authority of the Twelve departed Missouri on an embattled mission 36 to spread the Restoration around the world. A week later, Orson Pratt and the others turned their backs on Missouri as the steamboat brought them into Quincy and the arms of the Saints. They had accomplished their mission "without a dog wagging his tongue" at 37 them, in Woodruff's words. To their satisfaction at having fulfilled the revelation was added word of the escape and safe arrival of the Prophet. He had been released by his guards in the course of a change of venue - but Orson's brother Parley still lay in jail at Columbia. Orson rode out with Brigham Young to visit the Prophet at his refuge near Quincy the day following the return from Far West. They learned from Joseph, lean and pale from his six-month imprisonment, that a new |