a fine morning I made preparation to ride to Painsvill[e] with my wife and childrenfamily, also my Scribe, we had our sleigh and horses prepared and set out, when we arived were passing through Mentor Street ¹, we overtook a team with two men on the sleigh. I politely asked them to let me pass, they granted my request, and as we passed them, they bawled out, do you get any revelation lately, with an adition of blackguard² that I did not understand, this is a fair sample of the character of Mentor Street inhabitants, who are ready to abuse and scandalize, men who never laid a straw in their way, and infact those whos faces they never saw, and cannot bring an acusation, against, either of a temporal of spir[i]tual nature; except our firm belief in the fulness of the gospel and I was led to marvle that God at the long suffering and condescention of our heavenly Father, in permitting, these ungodly wretches, to possess, this goodly land, which is the indeed as beautifully situated, and its soil as fertile, as any in this region of country, and its inhabitance, as wealthy even blessed, above measure, in temporal things, and fain, would God bless, them with, with spiritual blessings, even eternal life, were it not for their evil hearts of unbelief, and we are led to ery in our hearts mingle our prayers with those saints, that have suffered the like treatment before us, whose souls are under the altar crying to the Lord for vengance upon those that dwell upon the earth and we rejoice that the time is at hand when, the wicked who will not repent will be swept from the earth with the besom of destruction and the earth become an inheritance for the poor and the meek. --

1. Mentor Street was a main road through Kirtland, Ohio.

2. "Blackguard," was a term, originally "black guard," referring to the lower servants of a household who were assigned to travel with and "guard" the kitchen pots when the household moved to a country home and back or with some other transfer of the family. The kitchen guard had to ride among the pots and pans which typically were black from the soot of cooking fires and this soot would find its way onto the clothing and bodies of the guard, hence "black guard." The term gradually came to mean anything low or demeaning and by Joseph Smith's time it could refer to vile or vulgar language as well as a low, vile person.