It is my purpose to show that in troubled times the Lord has always prepared a safe way ahead. We live in those “perilous times” which the Apostle Paul prophesied would come in the last days. (See 2 Timothy 3:1–7) If we are to be safe individually, as families, and secure as a church, it will be through “obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.” (Articles of Faith 1:3)

On July 24, 1849, the Saints had been in the valley two years to the day. They finally were free from years of mobbing and persecution. That called for a great celebration.

Just a few years earlier under dreadful conditions, the Prophet Joseph Smith suffered in Liberty Jail for months while the mobs drove the Saints from their homes. The words liberty and jail do not fit together very well.