The Life of John Taylor / Third President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

by B. H. Roberts

CHAPTER XXXIX.

LABORS AS PRESIDENT—SAMPLE TOURS—CHARACTER OF SERMONS—LESS OF THE POET BUT MORE OF THE PHILOSOPHER—A REVELATION.

Although President Taylor, at the time he became President of the Church, was two years past the three score years and ten allotted by the Psalmist as the life of man, he was not bowed down by their weight. His form was erect and his step elastic; and he entered upon the performance of his high duties with a zeal and vigor only to be expected of a younger man. He visited the Stakes of Zion in Utah and the surrounding territories, setting them in order, teaching, counseling and encouraging the Saints with all the energy and kindness of his great soul.

As a sample of his travels and labors among the people I give the following summary of two of his trips during the year 1881: In the latter part of July, in company with several of the Apostles and other brethren, he started on a tour to visit some of the northern Stakes and settlements. He was absent from Salt Lake City seventeen days, during which time he visited five Stakes of Zion, viz., Cache, Rich, Summit, Wasatch and Utah, traveling much of the distance in carriages. Twenty-three meetings were held by the party. President Taylor attended all but three, and spoke at the most of them.

In the latter part of November of the same year, he visited the southern Stakes and settlements, accompanied by his Counselor Joseph F. Smith and several of the Twelve Apostles. This tour occupied five weeks and four days. The party held sixty-eight meetings; besides many council meetings where advice and instructions to Presidents of Stakes, Bishops and other officers of the Church were freely given. Thus he labored incessantly among the people from his accession to the Presidency until he was driven into retirement by the judicial crusade waged against the Saints some years later.

The subject matter in the discourses of President Taylor in these years dealt very largely with the duties of the Saints in all the relations of life; as husbands and wives, parents and children, neighbors and citizens; unity, honor, integrity, honesty, purity in thought and act were his themes—in one word he preached righteousness as essential to the favor of God, and with the favor of God he assured the Saints they need not fear what man or nations could do. "God will be on the side of Israel, if Israel will be on the side of right," was his oft-repeated, confident assertion.

He was particularly careful to set in order the quorums of the priesthood, and charged them to walk in holiness before the Lord. Who does not remember with what earnestness and power in conferences and other public meetings, he was wont to admonish Presidents of Stakes and bishops of wards to set in order the priesthood and institutions under their supervision? And how he urged them to labor with all diligence, long-suffering and kindness for the reformation of the wayward! But if they would not reform, how he then strictly charged the authorities having jurisdiction in the case to sever them from the Church, that God, angels and the world might know that Israel had no fellowship with drunkards, debauchees, thieves, liars or the dishonest.

Alluding to the Priesthood and its organization he would say: "These things are given to us for what? To gratify our ambition? to enable us to ride over and trample under foot our fellow-creatures? to place power and authority upon us? No; not for any man's emolument or aggrandizement. Although there is nothing more honorable, nothing more dignified, nothing to which a man ought so much to aspire to as to be a servant of the living God, and to be commissioned by Him to do His work upon the earth. And what for? To spread correct principles among men; to combat priestcraft, statecraft, oppression, fraud and iniquity of all kinds; and to introduce among men those pure and holy principles by which the Gods are governed in the eternal worlds."

In addition to these things he taught implicit trust in God, showed the Saints their dependence upon Him, and frequently alluded to the source from whence they derived their knowledge of truth. "Any intelligence which we may possess," he would say, "and which we may be able to impart, is not of ourselves, but of God. It did not originate with Joseph Smith, with Brigham Young, with the Twelve Apostles, nor was it received from any institution of learning, or of science, either religious, political or social. Our philosophy is not the philosophy of the world; but of the earth and the heavens, of time and eternity, and proceeds from God."