Unto All Nations: Elder Taylor’s 1849–1852 Mission to France and Germany

With the onset of school and work at Book of Mormon Central again picking up for me, I haven't had time to work on this blog quite as much as I had hoped. For now, I hope you enjoy this essay that I wrote last semester regarding Elder John Taylor's mission to France and Germany. (Even formatting this to be blog-friendly took more time than I had originally planned on as well.)

Unto All Nations: Elder Taylor's Mission to France and Germany

What was the greatest challenge facing the Apostle John Taylor as he preached the restored gospel in France and Germany? As John Taylor and his companions travelled to France, they could have no idea what to expect. France, as it would turn out, was drastically different than England or America in terms of a political environment, which became a large hindrance to the missionaries in a new land. But they had served the people of other countries before and seen the hand of the Lord bless them bounteously, and so it was easy for them to move forward, trusting that the Lord would again bless them.

Brigham Young sent many missionaries out to declare the word of God, not willing to allow temporal matters to hinder the work of God. John Taylor had already served two prior missions in England, and so when John Taylor received another call from the Prophet, he was called to spread the church into continental Europe, beginning with the peoples of France and Germany.

Political Instability in France

As John Taylor travelled by land and by sea to arrive in France, where his mission would begin, he studied the French language in order to effectively teach the people he would meet. After finally making it to France in June 1850, Elder Taylor and his companions first started work in a town called Boulogne sur Mer. Almost immediately, the challenge that lay ahead of them became apparent.

France was steeped in tradition and Catholicism from its Roman history. Unlike America and even Great Britain, the continually tumultuous political landscape of France had not been good soil for religious liberty to be enjoyed, and laws had even been passed that were heavily influenced by the Catholic Church which tightly monitored and even restricted religious public gatherings.[1] In order to preach the gospel, the missionaries first had to gain favor with the mayor of Boulogne sur Mer and all other cities where they wanted to start a branch, something that could be a challenge in and of itself.

Other shifting political ideologies in the mainland European countries proved to be an even larger challenge for Elder Taylor and his companions. France had seen the most drastic change in political power in the last half-century, between the French Revolution of the late 1700s to end aristocracy, only to be followed by its reestablishment through Napoleon Bonaparte’s dictatorial rule shortly afterwards. Even after Bonaparte’s exile from France and the reestablishment of a republic in France, his nephew Louis Napoleon would make his own bid for power after being elected as president, climaxing in yet another overthrow of the new republic not unlike his uncle’s shortly before John Taylor would begin his trip home to the Salt Lake Valley. Under the pretense of such great political turmoil and unsteadiness at a national level, not many people in France were inclined to pay much attention to foreigners preaching a new gospel.

Among those same pretenses of political unease, officials in France at local and national levels could find more than enough reason to distrust any foreigner requesting to hold public meetings and teach a new theology that was, for the most part, unfamiliar to the world at large. Many would only see the possibility of political spies from enemies or even abroad, and possible inciting rebellion and discord among the citizens if they were not careful. Any missionary who would like to hold any meetings would have to juggle through a political landscape with which they were mostly unfamiliar, facing less trusting mayors and authorities as well as those who saw no threat in the missionaries’ message.

The Gospel Is Preached in Boulogne sur Mer

The missionaries met with the mayor of Boulogne sur Mer, Monsieur le Maire, who was welcoming to the apostle and his companions. Elder Taylor and John Bolton, one of his companions who was fluent in French and aware of the political landscape in the country, sought for an opportunity to meet with Maire almost as soon as he arrived in the French nation. During their meeting, John Taylor and John Bolton both spoke French, which helped charm the mayor and, thanks to Elder Bolton’s maneuvering, their conversation was steered over any rough dialogue and helped appease the mayor’s mind over the prospect of allowing new ministers to preach.[2] It also became clear that the missionaries could use politics and their relation to a territorial governor to their advantage during this meeting, as John Taylor later spoke about this meeting with the mayor of Boulogne sur Mer, stating:

I went into the city of Boulogne, and I obtained permission there from the mayor to preach; this I was under the necessity of doing. At that time, I had not been very particular in seeking recommends as I went along; but I had a recommend from Governor Young: he told the folks I was an honorable man, and signed his name to it as the Governor of the Territory of Utah, and Willard Richards as Secretary. I told the mayor, in relation to these matters, I had not many papers with me, but I had one that I obtained from the Governor of the state I came from. “O,” says he, “Mr. Taylor, this is very good indeed, won't you leave it with me, and if anybody finds any fault, I shall have it to refer to…” I was in a strange city, and was received courteously by the mayor. [3]

The outcome of the meeting was favorable, if not completely ideal, for the prospects of growing the Church of Jesus Christ in France. As an outcome of the deliberations with Meir, the missionaries were granted permission to hold meetings in consecrated church houses with limited authority to preach elsewhere, conditioned on the topic of the meeting being posted beforehand and approval from the mayor. While still a far cry from the freedom of speech that Elder Taylor experienced in America and Britain, he recognized still that the outcome was remarkable for the time and had surely been influenced by the Lord.[4]

While the mayor had courteously welcomed the missionaries into his city to preach the restored gospel, other Protestant ministers and citizens in the city did not take kindly to the news of a latter-day apostle preaching in Boulogne sur Mer and publicly challenged the missionaries, something which culminated in a debate between Elder Taylor and some of the most troublesome ministers. While Elder Taylor certainly won the debate and cleared away many misconceptions about the Church, it did not lead to the success he had hoped for. With few people interested in the message and only a small branch of the Church in Boulogne, Elder Taylor and two of his companions moved their work elsewhere.

John Taylor Seeks an Appeal to the National Government

John Taylor left Boulogne sur Mer for Paris, the capital of France, in mid-1850. Instead of having to deal with each mayor of each city individually, Elder Taylor hoped to get permission from the central government to preach throughout all of France. The government was initially willing to give the missionaries that allowance, however, due to persecutions the Saints faced in Denmark, the government prohibited them from preaching altogether.[5]

Feeling frustrated at the lack of concern for religion that the people felt, Elder Taylor published in the Millennial Star that the people of France were “gay, careless, and volatile”[6] with little to no regard for their message. The lack of freedoms of speech and the press seriously irked John Taylor to the point of his condemnation of Napoleon’s regime: “You had liberty to speak, but might be put in prison for doing so. You had liberty to print, but they might burn what you had printed, and put you in confinement for it.”[7]

Regardless of the prohibition, missionaries spread the Gospel to other parts of France. Meanwhile, John Taylor turned his focus on getting tracts and materials published in the French language to help aid in converting those they taught. In a letter to Orson Pratt, editor of the Millennial Star and fellow apostle, John Taylor wrote that

Brother Howell, Brother Bolton, and myself, arrived in Paris on the 19th [of July 1850], and left Brother Pack in Boulogne; we find we are very much embarrassed for the want of books in the French language. I purpose writing some immediately on the first principles of the Gospel, so that we can circulate them among the French.[8] 

As a part of the work the three missionaries now found themselves undertaking, an effort was made to translate The Book of Mormon into the French language. They realized that as converts grew in number, the need for the Book of Mormon in their native tongue increased. Writing on the growing number of converts, Francis M. Gibbons, a biographer for many of the latter-day prophets, observed that Elder Taylor and his companions

had staying power, so that little by little the Latter-day Saint community in Paris grew through a steady trickle of conversions. Compared with the flood of converts being gathered in Great Britain, the French results were nominal and disappointing. But the disparity disappears or is greatly minimized when one considers that Elder Taylor and his brethren were fighting their way upstream against odds and obstacles that their counterparts across the channel never had to confront.[9]          

The Gospel Is Preached in Germany

In 1851, upon receiving a request from Brigham Young for Elder Taylor to remain in Europe for another year, he felt prompted to move his work to Germany. John Taylor arrived in Hamburg in October 1851 with George Viett, a German schoolteacher who was recently converted in Paris, and others. Together, they began the work of translating The Book of Mormon into the German language.[10]

While Germany had not been through nearly as complex a political upheaval as its neighbor had been, there was still a large amount of distrust for the foreign missionary. In contemporary accounts, little is recorded of Elder Taylor’s preaching to the people of Germany; perhaps it is because he was still learning the German language, and so more of his time was focused on his efforts to translate The Book of Mormon. Elder Taylor spent little time in Germany, however, before he left for Paris, France, yet again, feeling a greater need to be there now that the work was established in Hamburg. It is probable that he was aware of the political situation deteriorating in France and wanted to strengthen the Saints there. The draft of The Book of Mormon’s translation only half complete, it would eventually be finished and published in Hamburg in 1852 by his companions who were able to stay behind in Hamburg.

Political Uprising Faced in Paris

John Taylor arrived in Paris on 19 December 1851. During his short leave to Germany, however, things had taken a drastic turn for the worse in the country. Louis Napoleon’s coup d’état finally climaxed as his dictatorial regime took advantage of the people who had first elected him as a president. Now the emperor, buildings were burned and soldiers patrolled the streets. The people hid inside for shelter from the violence that had erupted days before between Napoleon’s forces and the citizens of Paris who had died trying to defend the republic.[11]

Soon, Elder Taylor called a mission-wide conference, and over four hundred recent converts gathered in Paris. Unfortunately, word escaped to the government about this action, which clearly went against the sanction the government had previously given that no meeting for the Saints should be held. The next day a police officer arrived at M. Ducloux’s home, where Elder Taylor had been staying, only ten minutes after John Taylor had taken a cab to the railway station.[12] M. Ducloux was a faithful convert to the church who kept the officer occupied for the next two hours to give Elder Taylor time to leave the country to avoid the legal snare he almost wound up in. The church historian and apostle B.H. Roberts later wrote of this near entanglement with the authorities that

It was not more than ten minutes after he had taken the cab and started to the railway station to take his departure from France, when one of the high police officials came to inquire for him. The gentleman with whom he had stayed in Paris, M. Ducloux, was a very affectionate friend to him [Elder Taylor], and he, with his sister-in-law, kept the officer in conversation for two hours, speaking very highly of their late guest, maintaining that he was a respectable, high-minded gentleman. In turn the officer told him every place Elder Taylor had been since his arrival in Paris; when he came to France, what hotel he stayed at; when he went to England, and how long he remained; when he went to Germany, and how long he stayed there; what books he had printed, etc. In fact he gave a most minute account of all his movements, all of which were recorded in the police records.

Whether an attempt to intercept Elder Taylor was made or not is unknown. It might have been done by telegraphing their police agents, which were so numerous as to be ubiquitous, but without any design on his part to avoid them, for he did not know they were after him, he turned off the main route to England, to visit a little seashore town where he remained a week, and thus missed what might have been something more serious than a mere annoyance.[13]

The police in Paris no doubt saw Elder Taylor as a potential enemy to the state under their new government. Only by divine providence, it appears, Elder Taylor was able to escape France unmolested and apparently completely unaware of the problems he almost wound up in with the French government. After spending a week at the seashore reflecting on his service, with a potential police search for him ongoing, Elder Taylor returned home to Salt Lake City to his family and his fellow Saints yet again.

It is apparent that despite the challenges Elder Taylor and his companions faced while serving in France and Germany, it has opened a path for the restoration of the gospel to bloom in those countries. As Elder Taylor had prophesied shortly before leaving France, the Gospel has indeed rolled forth throughout France and Germany and through other nations as well. [14] Today, a temple resides in Paris, France, where Elder Taylor faced many of the problems that the political parties had caused him along with two temples in Germany. The French and German translations of The Book of Mormon that Elder Taylor was instrumental in the creation of have been printed by the thousands, a fulfilment of a prophecy that The Book of Mormon contains of the restoration of the gospel:

Yea, then will he remember the isles of the sea; yea, and all the people who are of the house of Israel, will I gather in, saith the Lord, according to the words of the prophet Zenos, from the four quarters of the earth. Yea, and all the earth shall see the salvation of the Lord, saith the prophet; every nation, kindred, tongue and people shall be blessed (1 Nephi 19:16-17).

 

NOTES

[1] See Gibbons, Francis M. John Taylor, Mormon Philosopher, Prophet of God. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2009, pp 110.

[2] See Gibbons, 110.

[3] John Taylor, August 22, 1852, Journal of Discourses, 26 vols., 1:20.

[4] Gibbons, 110.

[5] Roberts, B.H. The Life of John Taylor. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, p 230. John Taylor also mentions this briefly in his homecoming address found in John Taylor, August 22, 1852, Journal of Discourses, 26 vols., 1:21 along with added stipulations that the French government placed on the elders who would serve in Paris — only wealthy elders were allowed in the city of Paris itself.

[6] John Taylor, Letter to the Editor, Liverpool, September 15, 1850, Millennial Star 12:270.

[7] John Taylor, August 22, 1852, Journal of Discourses, 26 vols., 1:22. Also quoted in Roberts, B.H. The Life of John Taylor. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, p 232

[8] John Taylor, Letter to the Editor, Liverpool, September 15, 1850, Millennial Star 12:270.

[9] Gibbons, 121.

[10] John Taylor, August 22, 1852, Journal of Discourses, 26 vols., 1:24.

[11] Gibbons, 126.

[12] Gibbons, Francis M. John Taylor, Mormon Philosopher, Prophet of God. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2009, pp 127.

[13] Roberts, B.H. The Life of John Taylor. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, page 234.

[14] See John Taylor, August 22, 1852, Journal of Discourses, 26 vols., 1:26.