Meantime the Church had publicly announced as a principle of its faith the doctrine of celestial marriage, including as it does, a plurality of wives.
No sooner was the announcement made than misrepresentation distorted this doctrine into everything that was vile and impure. The old stories of licentious practices among the Saints in Nauvoo, fulminated by John C. Bennett and other apostates—but which had no existence except as these same apostates and a few other corrupt men practiced them, and for which they were expelled from the Church—were revived and believed with avidity by a credulous public, until Utah was looked upon as a hot-bed of impurity, and the Mormon religion as a veil under which was hidden all the ungodliness of man's baser and degrading passions.
It was to stem the constantly increasing tide of prejudice, set in motion by this flood of falsehood, that the movement by the Church to establish publications in the cities I have named, was made.
It was a difficult task that had been assigned Elder Taylor. Both the pulpit and the press were against him; and there could be no question as to what course political parties would take respecting the question. What the populace condemned, they would condemn. Besides, he found himself cramped financially for such an enterprise. The Church in Utah was unable to furnish the necessary means. The people there were having a severe struggle for existence with the unpropitious elements of the wilderness, and money there was none, or, at least, very little.
It is true there were many members of the Church in the eastern states at the time, but they were unorganized, and indifferent to the progress or defense of the work of God. Elder Taylor called upon the Saints to come to his assistance in publishing a paper, but it reminded him of a man, he humorously said, in describing the result to President Young, who said, "I can call spirits from the vasty deep;" "So can I," shouted another, "but they won't come." Still there were a few who responded, and with what they furnished and the money obtained for the teams and wagons he had brought with him from Utah, and a few hundred dollars which he and those with him could borrow, a paper was started, the first number bearing the date of the 17th of February, 1855.
"We commenced our publication," writes Elder Taylor to President Young, "not because we had means to do it, but because we were determined to fulfill our mission, and either make a spoon or spoil a horn. * * * How long we shall be able to continue, I don't know. We are doing as well as we can, and shall continue to do so; but I find it one thing to preach the gospel without purse or scrip, and another thing to publish a paper on the same terms."
CHAPTER XXVIII.
"THE MORMON"—THE FIRST ISSUE—IN THE FRONT OF THE BATTLE—BOLDNESS OF DEFENSE—CHALLENGES ACCEPTED—THE ACTS OF COWARDS—"THE MORMONS DON'T NEED YOUR SYMPATHY, NOR CANKERED GOLD"—A TERTULLIAN.
"The Mormon" was the title which Elder Taylor gave his paper. It was a handsome, well printed, twenty-eight columned weekly. It had a very striking and significant heading, filling up at least one fourth of the first page. It represented an immense American eagle with out-stretched wings poised defiant above a bee-hive, and two American flags. Above the eagle was an all-seeing eye surrounded by a blaze of glory, and the words: "Let there be light; and there was light." On the stripes of the flag on the left was written: "Truth, Intelligence, Virtue and Faith;" signed, "John Taylor;" upon those on the right; "Truth will prevail;" signed, "H. C. Kimball;" while in the blue fields of one of the flags, the star of Utah shone resplendently. Two scrolls on either side of the eagle bore the following inscriptions: "Mormon creed—mind your own business," Brigham Young; and "Constitution of the United States, given by inspiration of God," Joseph Smith.