After giving general directions to guide the Presidents of the Stakes in Arizona as to their future policy and movements, President Taylor and party visited the settlements of the Saints in Maricopa County, on Salt River; and from thence via Los Angeles went to San Francisco. Here he spent a day or two visiting points of interest. Among other features of his visit was a call at the famous library of the veteran historian, Hurbert H. Bancroft.
While in San Francisco he received despatches to the effect that it would not be safe for him to return home, as his arrest had been determined upon. Notwithstanding this information he immediately started for Salt Lake City, where he arrived on Tuesday, January 27th, 1885, having traveled nearly five thousand miles since the 3rd of the same month.
The Sunday following, February 1st, he preached his last public sermon. In it he related the principal incidents of his late mission into Arizona, described the wrongs inflicted upon the people there, and told the counsel he had given them.
As the vindictiveness of the courts had increased during his absence, he gave the same advice to the people of Utah.
He deplored the condition of things in the Territory, not so much on account of the Latter-day Saints, as on the account of the great government of the United States, which had stooped from the proud position it had hitherto boasted as the asylum for the oppressed of all nations, to that of a persecutor of a righteous people for their religion, until they had to find an asylum in an adjoining republic! Referring to the outrages perpetrated both in Arizona and in Utah, he asks:
"What would you do? Would you resent these outrages and break the heads of the men engaged in them, and spill their blood? No;" said he, "avoid them as much as you possibly can—just as you would wolves, or hyenas, or crocodiles, or snakes, or any of these beasts or reptiles. * * * Get out of their way as much as you can. What! Won't you submit to the dignity of the law? Well, I would if the law would only be a little more dignified. But when we see the dignity of the ermine bedragged in the mud and mire, and every principle of justice violated, it behooves men to take care of themselves as best they can. * * * But no breaking of heads, no bloodshed, rendering evil for evil. Let us try to cultivate the spirit of the gospel, and adhere to the principles of truth. * * * While other men are seeking to trample the Constitution under foot, we will try to maintain it. * * * I will tell you what you will see by and by. You will see trouble! trouble! TROUBLE enough in these United States. And as I have said before, I say today—I tell you in the name of God, WOE! to them that fight against Zion, for God will fight against them!"
Such was his last admonition, his last warning, his last prophecy delivered in person in public to the people of God, to the nation in which he had labored as a faithful servant of God, with such untiring zeal, wisdom and skill for half a century.
That night he went into retirement, to escape the ruthless persecution aimed at him by the unrelenting and hate-blinded enemies of the Church of Christ.