Elder Taylor.—I certainly did not anticipate this. I expected to investigate their principles further, according to agreement.
Chairman.—They do not wish to say any more.
Elder Taylor.—If they have no reply to make, of course I must let it rest.
Here the debate closed, and the Champion of Truth was triumphant.
The chairmen of the meetings, Mr. Luddy, Dr. Townley and Mr. Groves made some remarks at the close of the debate, and very unfairly, as Elder Taylor could have no opportunity to reply to them, undertook to rescue the vanquished ministers. In the published report of the discussion, however, he wrote out his replies to their strictures, and very effectually answered them.
There is one item connected with this discussion that should be dealt with, since it is a matter that the enemies of Elder Taylor have sought to make much of in casting reproach upon his veracity and moral courage. In the course of the discussion his opponents rehearsed all the charges of crime and immorality made in the writings and lectures of John C. Bennett after he was excommunicated from the Church; and accused the Saints with practicing the grave immoralities described by this arch apostate. Among the immoralities charged were those of promiscuous sexual intercourse, a community of wives, the keeping of seraglios, polygamy, illicit intercourse by permission of the Prophet, and the keeping of spiritual wives.
To all this Elder Taylor made a general and emphatic denial, and read from an article then published in the Appendix of the Doctrine and Covenants, expressing the belief of the Church on the subject of marriage; and inasmuch as he knew of and had obeyed the law of celestial marriage, including as it does a plurality of wives, he has been accused of falsehood, and of seeking to deceive by denying the charges then brought against the Church.
The polygamy and gross sensuality charged by Bennett and repeated by those ministers in France, had no resemblance to celestial or patriarchal marriage which Elder Taylor knew existed at Nauvoo, and which he had obeyed. Hence in denying the false charges of Bennett he did not deny the existence of that system of marriage that God had revealed; no more than a man would be guilty of denying the legal, genuine currency of his country, by denying the genuineness and denouncing what he knew to be a mere counterfeit of it.
Another illustration: Jesus took Peter, James and John into the mountain and there met with Moses and Elias, and the glory of God shone about them, and these two angels talked with Jesus, and the voice of God was heard proclaiming Him to be the Son of God. After the glorious vision, as Jesus and His companions were descending the mountain, the former said: "Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of Man be risen again from the dead."[[3]] Suppose one of these apostles had turned from the truth before the Son of Man was risen from the dead; and under the influence of a wicked, lying spirit should charge that Jesus and some of His favorite apostles went up into a mountain, and there met with Moses and Elias,—or some persons pretending to represent them,—together with a group of voluptuous courtesans with whom they spent the day in licentious pleasure. If the other apostles denounce that as an infamous falsehood, would they be untruthful? No; they would not. Or would they be under any obligations when denying the falsehoods of the apostate to break the commandment the Lord had given them by relating just what had happened in the mountain? No; it would have been a breech of the Master's strict commandment for them to do that. So with Elder Taylor. While he was perfectly right and truthful in denying the infamous charges repeated by his opponents, he was under no obligation and had no right to announce to the world, at that time, the doctrine of celestial marriage. It was not then the law of the Church, or even the law to the Priesthood of the Church: the body thereof at the time knew little or nothing of it, though it had been revealed to the Prophet and made known to some of his most trusted followers. But today, now that the revelation on celestial marriage is published to the world, if the slanderous charges contained in the writings of John C. Bennett should be repeated, every Elder in the Church could truthfully and consistently do just what Elder Taylor did in France—he could deny their existence.
That Elder Taylor neither lacked the courage of his convictions on this subject, nor the boldness to proclaim them, nor the skill to defend, was amply proven in subsequent years, when, after the law of celestial marriage was proclaimed to be the law of the Church, he went to the city of New York to publish a paper, and there in the metropolis and center of civilization of America, fearlessly proclaimed that doctrine, and successfully defended it against all comers.