M. Krolokoski.—"Well, I wish you every success; but I am afraid you will not succeed."
Elder Taylor.—"Monsieur Krolokoski, you sent Monsieur Cabet to Nauvoo, some time ago. He was considered your leader—the most talented man you had. He went to Nauvoo shortly after we had deserted it. Houses and lands could be obtained at a mere nominal sum. Rich farms were deserted, and thousands of us had left our houses and furniture in them, and almost everything calculated to promote the happiness of man was there. Never could a person go to a place under more happy circumstances. Besides all the advantages of having everything made ready to his hand, M. Cabet had a select company of colonists. He and his company went to Nauvoo—what is the result? I read in all your reports from there—published in your own paper here, in Paris, a continued cry for help. The cry is money, money! We want money to help us carry out our designs.[[1]] While your colony in Nauvoo with all the advantages of our deserted fields and homes—that they had only to move into—have been dragging out a miserable existence, the Latter-day Saints, though stripped of their all and banished from civilized society into the valleys of the Rocky Mountains, to seek that protection among savages—among the peau rouges as you call our Indians—which Christian civilization denied us—there our people have built houses, enclosed lands, cultivated gardens, built school-houses, and have organized a government and are prospering in all the blessings of civilized life. Not only this, but they have sent thousands and thousands of dollars over to Europe to assist the suffering poor to go to America, where they might find an asylum.
"The society I represent, M. Krolokoski," he continued, "comes with the fear of God—the worship of the Great Eloheim; we offer the simple plan ordained of God, viz: repentance, baptism for the remission of sins, and the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost. Our people have not been seeking the influence of the world, nor the power of government, but they have obtained both. Whilst you, with your philosophy, independent of God, have been seeking to build up a system of communism and a government which is, according to your own accounts, the way to introduce the Millennial reign. Now, which is the best, our religion, or your philosophy?"
M. Krolokoski.—"Well, Mr. Taylor, I can say nothing."
"Philosophy" has always been a passion with the French; but Elder Taylor seems not to have had a very high regard for what he saw of it among them. He held it in the same esteem that Paul did the "science" of the Greeks—he considered it a misnomer—philosophy, falsely so called.
One day in walking through the splendid grounds of the Fardin des Plantes with a number of friends, one of the party purchased a curious kind of cake, so thin and light, that you could blow it away, and eat all day of it and still not be satisfied. Some one of the company asked Elder Taylor if he knew the name of it. "No," he replied, "I don't know the proper name; but in the absence of one, I can give it a name—I will call it French philosophy, or fried froth, which ever you like."
During his stay in Paris he visited the Palace Vendome, and with a number of friends ascended Napoleon's Column of Victory. His companions scratched their names on the column as thousands had done before them. Seeing that Elder Taylor had not written his name, they asked him to write it with theirs. "No," he replied, "I will not write my name there; but I will yet write it in living, imperishable characters !"
Having baptized a number of people in Paris, he organized a branch of the Church in that city early in December. During the summer, too, he had made arrangements for translating the Book of Mormon into the French language, and publishing a monthly periodical, also in French, called Etoile Du Deseret—The Star of Deseret,—a royal octavo sheet, the first number of which appeared in May, 1851.
In the work of translating the Book of Mormon he was greatly assisted by the patient labors of Elder Curtis E. Bolton, Brother Louis Bertrand and several highly educated gentlemen whom he baptized in Paris, but whose names unfortunately cannot be obtained.
When he announced his intention of publishing the Book of Mormon in French, Elder Franklin D. Richards called upon the conferences of the British Mission to come to his assistance with means; but he made other arrangements to meet his engagements with the publishing house; and wrote the following characteristic letter to Elder Richards: