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

by B. H. Roberts

In the main, it is a collection of scriptural passages bearing upon the subject, brought together from both ancient and modern revelations, and arranged in such manner as to develop the necessity, sufficiency, efficacy, glory, power and completeness of the atonement made by Messiah, for the sins of the world. It is not a work ambitious of displaying literary skill, or written with a view to meet the shallow and trifling objections urged against this great, central fact of the gospel by glib-tongued infidels and repeated without thought by their apish followers. It was the object of the author to bring together all the testimonies to be found in holy writ on this subject, as well in modern as in ancient scripture; and most admirably did he succeed, linking the testimonies together with such remarks as make their meanings and bearings clear, and increase the value of the original passages. The student of the great subject of the atonement, will find in President Taylor's work a most valuable collection of material for his consideration.

In chapter XXIII he will also find a most valuable reference to the doctrine of evolution as believed in by the Darwinian school of philosophers—a school of philosophy which professes to trace living phenomena to their origin, and which, if it were true, would at once destroy the doctrine of the Atonement.

In the appendix to the work, also will be found some interesting information in relation to the ideas of a general atonement and redemption entertained by the ancient heathen nations, traces of which may still be found in the traditions of their descendants. From these facts some noted infidel writers have sought to make it appear that the Christian doctrine of the atonement was derived from the heathens; but President Taylor clearly proves that the heathens originally derived their knowledge of these things from the earlier servants of God, and have preserved those truths, though in a mutilated form, in their traditions. "Exhibiting," as President Taylor writes, "that the atonement was a great plan of the Almighty for the salvation, redemption and exaltation of the human family; and that the pretenders in the various ages, had drawn whatever of truth they possessed, from the knowledge of those principles taught by the priesthood from the earliest periods of recorded time; instead of Christianity being indebted, as some late writers would allege, to the turbid system of heathen mythology, and to pagan ceremonies."

About this time he also wrote a pamphlet of some forty-five pages on the Aaronic Priesthood, chiefly relating to the authority and duties of Bishops.

The Mormon question having come once more prominently before the country through the enactments of Congress against it, the editor of the North American Review visited Utah for the express purpose of soliciting President Taylor to write an article on the then present state of the Mormon question, which he did, reviewing the operations of the recently passed Edmunds law; and in addition to that, refuted many of the false, slanderous misrepresentations, both new and old, respecting the Saints.

Meantime the storm which President Taylor had predicted at the April conference in 1882, burst upon the Saints in all its fury. The conspirators against the Church of Christ, in the Edmunds enactment, had a law under which they hoped to be able to destroy its power.

The first act of the Commission appointed by that law, was to frame a test oath which they required every person to take before he was permitted to register or vote. This practically disfranchised a whole Territory at one fell swoop; and in order to be reinstated as a voter, every man had to take the oath, which required him to swear that he had never simultaneously lived with more than one woman "in the marriage relation;" or if a woman, that she was not the wife of a polygamist, nor had she entered into any relation with any man in violation of the laws of the United States concerning polygamy and bigamy.

By this arrangement it will be seen that those who cohabited with more than one woman in adultery or prostitution, were not affected by its provisions. The roue, the libertine, the strumpet, the brothel-keeper, the adulterer and adulteress could vote. No matter how licentious a man or a woman might be, all but the Mormons were screened and protected in the exercise of the franchise by the ingenious insertion of the clause, "in the marriage relation," a clause which nowhere appears in the Edmunds law. Such broad constructionists were the Commission, that they declared no man or woman who had ever been a member of a family practicing plural marriage, should be permitted to register or vote, no matter what their present status might be. As a case in point, President Taylor himself relates the following incidents connected with the operations of this law. They are from the article above referred to in the North American Review:

"A former mayor of Salt Lake City, Mr. Feramorz Little, a very honorable gentleman and highly respected, came to this Territory many years ago, before there was any law of Congress against plural marriage, and espoused two wives. Subsequently, one of these wives died, then the other, and at the time that this incident occurred he had been for years without a wife. He had a son who was appointed registrar for a certain district in this city, and this son had the mortification of being compelled, under the ruling of the Commission, to refuse his father permission to register, and consequently deprived him of the right to vote—a privilege which he had a perfect right to exercise, both because of the provision in the Constitution that no ex post facto law shall be made, and again by reason of the statute of limitations, which bars all action in any such cases after the expiration of three years. Soon after the refusal of the registrar to place his father's name on the registration list, a well known keeper of a bagnio and her associates presented themselves, and the son had the humiliation of having to permit them to register. These courtesans afterward voted.

"Another case: A man came to the place of registration, and remarked to the officer that he supposed he could not register, as he had a wife and also kept a mistress. This man might be considered a very straight-forward fellow to make so ready an acknowledgment, but I fail to see anything straight-forward in such a crooked transaction as the breaking of the marriage vows and marital infidelity. But the officer knew what was in the oath better than this man, and advised him to read it. He did so. When he came to the words, 'in the marriage relation,' he immediately said, 'Yes, I see. I can go that,' and was at once sworn and registered."