"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.

Heading of "The Mormon"

On the inside, at the head of the editorial column was the American eagle standing on a bee-hive with an American flag on either side. Upon the bee-hive, on one side, leaned the Doctrine and Covenants, Book of Mormon and Bible; on the other a tablet on which was written: "Peace and good will to man." The eagle held in its break a scroll on which was written: "Holiness to the Lord."

The Mormon office was situated on the corner of Nassau and Ann streets, with the offices of the New York Herald on one side, and those of the Tribune on the other. Elder Taylor was thus in the very heart of Gotham's newspaper world. Selecting such a stand is evidence enough that he did not intend to hide his light under a bushel. On the contrary he had taken a prominent position with a determination to keep it. He stationed himself in the front rank, unfurled his colors and we shall see that with the bold, dashing courage of a Henry of Navarre, how well he held his place.

It was the custom at the time to distribute the first issue of newspapers free to the news boys, and let them sell them for what they pleased. Accordingly on the first day of its publication hundreds of news boys filled the lower offices and thronged the stairway leading to the upper rooms, clamoring for The Mormon. As they were promptly supplied, the paper with its conspicuous heading was waved in the face of the public and all through the principal thoroughfares the cry of "Mormon," "Mormon"—"Here's yer Mormon," was heard ringing and echoing on every side.

To say that this first springing of the batteries created a sensation but feebly expresses the effect produced.

The prospectus of The Mormon announced that it would be devoted to the cause and interests of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; "and will be the advocate of its claims, social, moral, political and religious; and will also treat upon all subjects which the editor may deem instructive or edifying to his readers, among which will be science, literature and the general news of the day. Further than this he has no pretensions, nor does he propose to be bound to any particular party or interest."

Subsequently, though in an early number of The Mormon, Elder Taylor made a further announcement of his principles, and what he meant to sustain, as follows:

"We believe in good, sound, healthy morals, in matter of fact philosophy, in politics uncorrupted, and that secure the greatest good to all. We believe in the God of heaven and certainly in religion. We believe in a religion that will make a man go down to the grave with a clear conscience, and an unfaltering step, to meet his God as a Father and a Friend without fear."

During the two years and a half that he continued to edit The Mormon, he kept free from all entangling alliances in party politics, but criticised all parties and measures with a fearlessness and intelligence that is truly refreshing at a time when party prejudice or venality controlled the utterances of the press.

But it is as a defender of the faith and character of the Saints that Elder Taylor in The Mormon is most conspicuous. He leaped into the public arena, threw down his gage of battle and dared the traducers of the Saints of God to take it up. The very name Mormon—which they had derided and made the synonym for all that was absurd in religion, impure in social life, or disloyal to government, he took up and made the title of his paper—wrote it in bold letters and surrounded it with the symbols of liberty, intelligence and truth, and defied its slanderers to pluck from it the emblems in which he enshrined it.

"We are Mormon," he writes in the first number, "inside and outside; at home or abroad, in public and private—everywhere. We are so, however, from principle. We are such, not because we believe it to be the most popular, lucrative, or honorable (as the world has it); but because we believe it to be true, and more reasonable and scriptural, moral and philosophic; because we conscientiously believe it is more calculated to promote the happiness and well-being of humanity, in time and throughout all eternity, than any other system which we have met with."

A short time afterward we have him saying: "We have said before and say now, that we defy all the editors and writers in the United States to prove that Mormonism is less moral, scriptural, philosophical; or that there is less patriotism in Utah than in any other part of the United States. We call for proof; bring on your reasons, gentlemen, if you have any; we shrink not from the investigation, and dare you to the encounter. If you don't do it, and you publish any more of your stuff, we shall brand you as poor, mean, cowardly liars; as men publishing falsehoods knowing them to be so, and shrinking from the light of truth and investigation."

The New York Mirror, in calling attention to his presence in the city and the spread of Mormonism, said: "While our public moralists and reformers are making war upon the hotels and taverns and private property of our citizens, a hideous system—an immoral excrescence—is allowed to spring up and overtop the Constitution itself. Why are there no public meetings convened in the tabernacle to denounce Mormonism? The evil has become a notorious fact—its existence cannot be any longer ignored—and it is not therefore prudent that the eyes of the public should be closed to its effects."

To this Elder Taylor replied: "We are ready to meet Mr. Fuller in the tabernacle on this question at any time. We court investigation and have nothing to hide." Mr. Fuller did not accept the challenge; and when, some time afterwards, he repeated his abuse, Elder Taylor taunted him with cowardice and charged him with being guilty of willful falsehood; but the editor of the Mirror shrank from the investigation in the tabernacle which he had proposed. His act was truly that of a blustering coward who had raised the cane over the head of his enemy, but was afraid to strike the blow.^[1]

The New York Herald was as bitter and unfair in its attacks upon the Saints and Mormonism as the Mirror; and Elder Taylor was as incisive and fearless in his rejoinders to the former as to the latter. The Herald proposed that a meeting be called in Tammany Hall and that the ministers of the several churches should make an expose of the absurdities and wickedness of Mormonism. Elder Taylor promptly announced his willingness to meet those ministers in such a gathering and defend the character and doctrine of the Saints. The meeting was not called. The ministers of the several churches were not fighting Mormonism that way. Slander, vituperation, denunciation, falsehood uttered at times and places where no answer could be made, not discussion open and manly has ever been the methods of Christian ministers against Mormonism.

The New York Sun was also in the field against Mormonism, and was behind none of its contemporaries in the bitterness of its attacks. So bitter, indeed, was the press generally, that the Woman's Advocate, touched with pity for a people so universally denounced, deplored the lack of charity manifested in the discussion of the Utah question; and when the famine of 1855 threatened the destruction of the Saints in Utah, and the press of the east but ill concealed its rejoicing at the prospect of the solution of the Mormon problem by such a calamity, the same journal lamented the lack of sympathy manifested toward the Mormon people in their trying circumstances, In reply the Sun said:

"As to the alleged want of sympathy, it is enough to say that there has yet been no appeal for help from Utah. If an appeal were made in the name of humanity, the degrading and disgusting doctrines of Brigham Young, and others of the priesthood, promulgated as articles of faith, would not hinder the American people from responding to it."

To which Elder Taylor with some warmth answered:

"The Sun says there has been no appeal from Utah for help. An appeal for help indeed! They have called for their own, but their rights have been continually withheld, though your statesmen owned their cause was just. And shall they now ask charity of those that robbed and despoiled them of their goods and murdered their best men? We have been robbed of millions and driven from our own firesides into the cold, wintry blasts of the desert, to starve by your charitable institutions, and shall we now crave your paltry sixpences? Talk to us with your hypocritical cant about charity! Pshaw! it's nauseating to everyone not eaten up with your corrupt humbuggery and pharisaical egotism. You forgot you were talking to Americans, born upon the soil of freedom, suckled in liberty, who have inhaled it from their fathers' lips—their ears yet tingling with the tales of a nation's birth—sons of fathers who fought for rights which you, in your bigotry and self-conceit, would fain wrench from them. Intolerance has thrice driven them from their homes, but the wild burst of liberty of '76, now reverberates through the mountain passes of Utah, bidding defiance to mobocracy and its leaders; and hurling mock charity and pretended patriotism back to the fount of corruption from which it issues. The Mormons neither need your sympathy nor your cankered gold. Your malicious slanders only excite contempt for those base enough to utter them. Your contemptible falsehoods fail to ruffle a feather in our caps. * * * The God of Jacob in whom the Mormons trust—He who brought up Israel out of Egypt—He it is who sustained the Mormons in their tedious journeyings over the barren deserts and wild mountain passes of this continent. In the dark hour of trial, amid all their distresses, without friends or home—God upheld and sustained them; He sustains them still, and will cause them to shine forth with the bright radiance of eternal truth over the wide world, long after their malicious slanderers shall have sunk to oblivion in the filth of their own corruptions."

This boldness in rejoinder to all opponents reminds one of the tone of Tertullian's defense of the early Christians. Of him it is said: "His was not the tone of a supplicant pleading for toleration. He demanded justice." So with Elder Taylor.

Footnotes

1. There were two men named Fuller connected with the Mirror while Elder Taylor was publishing The Mormon. The first was a very courteous gentleman. He had visited Utah and spoke very highly in the Mirror of her people. But shortly after the advent of the Mormon, there arose a controversy about the ownership of the Mirror, and it fell into the hands of the second Mr. Fuller, who was as bitter in his feelings against the Saints as his methods of opposing them were cowardly.