John Taylor
“The kingdom of God or nothing” — the man who survived Carthage and became its witness
At Carthage
John Taylor was born in England in 1808, converted to the Church in Canada in 1836, and became one of the most intellectually capable and fiercely principled men in early Latter-day Saint leadership. He was present in Carthage Jail on June 27, 1844, when the mob broke through. He was shot four times and survived only because one of the bullets struck a watch in his pocket and was deflected.
He spent months recovering from his wounds. He never forgot what he saw in that room. His account of the martyrdom — included as Doctrine and Covenants Section 135 — contains one of the most powerful eulogies in all of Latter-day Saint scripture:
D&C 135:3
“Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it.”
The Kingdom or Nothing
Taylor became an apostle in 1838 and served as third president of the Church from 1880 until his death in 1887. His motto — “The kingdom of God or nothing” — was not rhetoric; it was the operating principle of his life. He was the most publicly visible Latter-day Saint in the United States Congress’s anti-polygamy hearings, and he refused to capitulate under federal pressure, spending the last years of his presidency in hiding rather than abandon what he believed was a divinely commanded practice.
He was a gifted writer and debater who took on some of the most aggressive critics of the Restoration in public exchanges, a man with both the intellect and the will to engage rather than retreat.
“I Shall Ring Through All Eternity”
Before the mob arrived at Carthage, the men in the jail sang a hymn — John Taylor sang “A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief.” When the mob came, Taylor attempted to escape through the window and was shot. As he lay bleeding, he reportedly said that the truth would “ring through all eternity.”
He lived forty more years after that room, carrying the bullet wounds and the memory of what he had seen. He became the Church’s third president — a man who had been in the room when the Prophet was killed and had spent every year afterward making sure the work the Prophet died for continued. The kingdom of God or nothing. That was his life’s entire argument, made in blood and then in decades of stubborn faithfulness.
Key Scripture
- D&C 135 — Taylor’s account of the martyrdom; the eulogies of Joseph and Hyrum