Footnotes:
[1]. Benjamin L. Clapp, who afterwards became one of the First Council of Seventy, was born in the state of Alabama, August 19, 1814. He had joined the Church in an early day, and had already performed successful missions in the South, especially in the state of Kentucky.
[2]. This missionary movement at a time when it may be said that the whole country was "up in arms" against the Church, and its fortunes were apparently desperate, is truly an astonishing thing. And yet such missionary movements have become quite characteristic of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Its fortunes have never been at so low an ebb but what it could always undertake some great missionary enterprise. For example, when apostasy was rife in Kirtland, and the powers of darkness seemed massed for its overthrow, the Prophet, "to save the Church," organized and sent forth a mission to Great Britain; and now from upper Missouri, when the whole organization seemed to be in danger of disintegration, a mission is nevertheless organized to go into the Southern States to preach the Gospel. In later volumes of this work we shall also see that in 1850, when the whole body of the Mormon people had been expatriated from their country and fled into the desert wilderness of the Rocky mountain region, and when it was generally supposed that the world had practically seen the last of Mormonism, and when the Saints still had before them the task of subduing a wilderness, and many thousands of their people yet to gather from the East, where they were in a scattered condition, and the very existence of the people to human eyes seemed precarious, lo! a world-wide mission was organized and members of the quorum of Apostles were sent from the Church in the wilderness, into Scandinavia, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland. This missionary spirit so characteristic of the Church, and to which it so staunchly adheres in all its fortunes, proclaims the genius of the work. The primary purpose of the Church's existence is to proclaim the truth of which it is the sacred depository, and after that to perfect the lives of those who receive its message. In proportion to its devotion to these two grand objects of its existence, has been and always will be the measure of its success.
[3]. John Taylor was born November 1st, 1808, in Milnthorp, a small town near the head of Morecombe bay, and not far from Windemere, the "Queen of English Lakes," in the country of Westmoreland, England. His father's name was James Taylor, whose forefathers for many generations had lived on an estate known as Craig Gate, in Ackenthwaite. John Taylor's mother's name was Agnes; her maiden name was also Taylor. Her Grandfather, Christopher Taylor, lived to be ninety-seven years of age. His son John, father of Agnes, held an office in the excise under the government from his first setting out in life to the age of about sixty. The maiden name of Agnes Taylor's mother was Whittington, a descendant of the family made famous by Richard Whittington, the younger son of Sir William Whittington.
At the age of seventeen Elder Taylor was made a Methodist exhorter or local preacher, and was very active and earnest in his ministerial labors. In 1832 he removed with his family to Toronto, upper Canada, and here engaged in preaching under the auspices of the Methodist church. Within a year after his arrival in Canada he married Leonora Cannon, daughter of Captain George Cannon (grandfather of the late George Q. Cannon). Leonora Cannon had come to Canada as the companion of the wife of Mr. Mason, a the private secretary of Lord Aylmer, Governor-General of Canada. She was a devout Methodist, and through attendance upon church became acquainted with Mr. Taylor. While living in Toronto Elder Taylor associated himself with a number of gentlemen of education and refinement who were not quite satisfied with the doctrines of their respective churches, as those doctrines did not agree with the teachings of the Bible. Through this organization, they were seeking for greater religious light, and it was under these circumstances that Elder Parley P. Pratt arrived in Toronto with a letter of introduction to Elder Taylor, and several times addressed this association of gentlemen who were seeking the truth. The end of the matter was that John Taylor accepted the Gospel under the ministration of Elder Pratt; and was soon afterwards ordained an Elder in the Church, and commenced his missionary labors. Of his journey to Kirtland and defense of the Prophet against the fulminations of apostates we have already spoken. (See vol. II, p. 488—Note). Elder Taylor had come to Missouri in response to the notification he had received that he was chosen an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ by revelation. (See revelation of 8th of July, 1838, pp. 46, 47).