Smith. 'Why, where in the name of God shall we go?' Then turning to our men he said: 'Boys, follow me.' About two hundred men went out on the open prairie to meet the thirty-five hundred. While these forces faced each other, a flag of truce came in from the mob bearing the message that it was their intention to destroy Far West; but there was a man and his family—of the name of Lightner—not Mormons, who had friends among the attacking party, and they desired this family to leave the city before it was destroyed. This message was sent to the family. They replied that they had always been treated with consideration by the Mormons, and they would stay with them. This reply the Prophet Joseph took in person to the flag of truce man; and just then a troop of cavalry, two hundred strong, was seen approaching, and Joseph added this to the answer sent by the non-Mormon family: 'Go tell your general for me that if he does not immediately withdraw his men, I will send them to hell!'"
Notwithstanding their superiority in numbers the mob beat a hasty and inglorious retreat.
Such were the scenes enacted in Missouri during the stay of Elder Taylor in that state; and it was in the midst of such scenes as these, on the 19th of December, 1838, that he was ordained an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, by Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball.
Footnotes
1. Ether XIII, and III. Nephi XX and XXI.
CHAPTER VII.
BANISHED FROM MISSOURI—RETURNS TO FULFILL A PROPHECY—STARTS ON HIS MISSION TO ENGLAND—SICKNESS BY THE WAY—ARRIVAL IN NEW YORK.
The Saints, after their expulsion from the State of Missouri, found a temporary resting place in Quincy, Illinois, and to that city, after visiting the Prophet Joseph Smith in Liberty prison, the place of his incarceration, Elder Taylor made his way.
Several of the Apostles who met there held a consultation in respect to the revelation which had been given the July previous, commanding their quorum to take leave of the Saints in the city of Far West, on the 26th day of April, 1839, at the building spot of the Lord's house, previous to crossing the Atlantic on a mission to foreign lands. It had been the constant boast of the mob from the time the revelation was made known, that this was one of "Joe Smith's" revelations that should fail of fulfillment if no other did. But the several Apostles who took part in the above mentioned consultation, among whom was Elder Taylor, were determined that the revelation should not fail, and agreed to return to Far West by different routes, and meet at the temple site on the day appointed.
Their undertaking was successful. Five of the Apostles were at the temple site before daylight of the day appointed, together with a number of high priests, elders and priests. At this meeting they excommunicated a number of persons from the Church, ordained Wilford Woodruff and George A. Smith apostles, and others were ordained to the office of seventy. Prayer was offered up by the apostles in the order of their standing in their quorum. It was a brilliant, moonlight night, according to Elder Taylor, and out on the still air, strong and clear rose that glorious song of Zion—
ADAM ONDI-AHMAN.[1]
This earth was once a garden place,
With all her glories common;
And men did live a holy race,
And worship Jesus face to face—
In Adam-ondi-Ahman.
We read that Enoch walked with God,
Above the power of mammon;
While Zion spread herself abroad,
And saints and angels sang aloud—
In Adam-ondi-Ahman.
Her land was good and greatly blest,
Beyond old Israel's Canaan;
Her fame was known from east to west,
Her peace was great, and pure the rest
Of Adam-ondi-Ahman.
Hosanna to such days to come—
The Savior's second coming,
When all the earth in glorious bloom
Affords the saints a holy home,
Like Adam-ondi-Ahman.
At the conclusion of the hymn, Elder Alpheus Cutler, the master workman of the Lord's House, laid the south-east corner stone in its position, and stated that in consequence of the peculiar situation of the Saints it was deemed prudent to discontinue further labor on the house until the Lord should open the way for its completion. The Apostles then took leave of some seventeen Saints who were present, and started on their way to fill their missions beyond the Atlantic.
On their way they stopped at Quincy, where they met the Prophet Joseph, who had lately escaped from the hands of his enemies in Missouri. The Prophet heartily approved the labors of the Twelve, and their course received also the commendation of the Church in a general conference assembled at Quincy.
The Saints that same spring began settling at Commerce, afterwards Nauvoo, on the east bank of the Mississippi, in Hancock County, Illinois. By this time the reaction from the excitement in which they had lived for more than a year, set in, and almost the entire people sank down from exhaustion, and became an easy prey to the malaria prevalent in the district at that time.
In the midst of this sickness, poverty and general wretchedness, Elder Taylor made his preparations to continue his journey to England. He had secured quarters for his family, in connection with others, in miserable, old log barracks in Montrose, a small settlement opposite Nauvoo, in what was then the Territory of Iowa.
It was the 8th of August that he left Montrose to fill his mission. He dedicated his wife and family to the care of the Lord, and blessed them in His name: "The thought of the hardships they had just endured," he remarks, "the uncertainty of their continuing in the house they then occupied—and that only a solitary room—the prevalence of disease, the poverty of the brethren, their insecurity from mobs, together with the uncertainty of what might take place during my absence, produced feelings of no ordinary character. These solicitations, paternal and conjugal, were enhanced also by the time and distance that was to separate us. But the thought of going forth at the command of the God of Israel to revisit my native land, to unfold the principles of eternal truth and make known the things that God had revealed for the salvation of the world, overcame every other feeling."
In Nauvoo Elder Taylor joined Wilford Woodruff, who was scarcely able to drag himself along, and who remarked that he felt and looked more like a subject for the dissecting room than a missionary. After taking leave of the Prophet and his counselors, Sidney Rigdon and Hyrum Smith, Elder Taylor and his sick companion left Nauvoo.
On the outskirts of the settlement they passed Parley P. Pratt and Heber C. Kimball, who were building a log house. Parley, who, it will be remembered, had carried the gospel to Elder Taylor, was stripped—bare headed and bare footed. He hailed the brethren as they were passing and gave them a purse, it was all he had. Elder Heber C. Kimball, who was
