Joseph Smith — Delivered from the Kidnapping Attempt at Dixon, Illinois (June 1843)

“I started on my journey with my wife, to visit her sister, who resided at Dixon, in Lee county, Illinois. We arrived at Dixon on the 22nd of June, and put up at the Mansion House. On the 23rd, about half-past twelve o'clock, as I was about to start for the purpose of visiting my friends, I was accosted by two men, Joseph H. Reynolds, of Jackson county, Missouri, and Harmon Wilson, of Carthage, Hancock county, Illinois, who laid violent hands upon me, and presented cocked pistols to my breast, and without showing any writ or authority, swore they would shoot me if I stirred, or if I offered the least resistance. They dragged me to a carriage which they had in waiting, and in which they hurried me off, without letting me see my wife, or even bid her good-bye, although she was but a few rods distant. They took me unlawfully, treated me rigorously, strove to deprive me of my rights, and would have run with me into Missouri to have been murdered, if Providence had not interposed; but now they are in my hands, and I have taken them into my house, set them at the head of my table, and placed before them the best which my house afforded; and they were waited upon by my wife, whom they deprived of seeing me when I was taken. I have treated them with kindness, and have shown them that I am a better man than they are. I have done this to show them the difference between the spirit of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the spirit of the world. They have been in my house, and have been treated with the greatest kindness, and I have not even mentioned to them the treatment I received from them, or the wrongs they have done me, but have left them to reflect upon their own conduct, and to draw their own conclusions.”

— Joseph Smith, History of the Church, Vol. 5, pp. 440-441