John Taylor, who succeeded Brigham Young as President of the Church, and who in Carthage jail may be said to have shared the martyrdom with the Prophet Joseph--for he was savagely wounded when the Prophet was slain--says of him: "I was acquainted with Joseph Smith for years. I have traveled with him; I have been with him in private and in public; I have associated with him in councils of all kinds; I have listened hundreds of times to his public teachings, and his advice to his friends and associates of a more private nature. I have been at his house and seen his deportment in his family. I have seen him arraigned before the courts of his country, and seen him honorably acquitted, and delivered from the pernicious breath of slander, and the machinations and falsehoods of wicked and corrupt men. I was with him living, and with him when he died; when he was murdered in Carthage jail by a ruthless mob with their faces painted, and headed by a Methodist minister named Williams--I was there, and was myself wounded in my body. I have seen him under all these various circumstances, and I testify before God, angels and men that he was a good, honorable, virtuous man--that his doctrines were good, scriptural and wholesome--that his precepts were such as became a man of God--that his private and public character was unimpeachable--and that he lived and died as a man of God." [7] If of these testimonies it shall be said they are borne by men who were Joseph Smith's friends and followers--interested parties, bent on perpetuating the frauds he inaugurated, I would reply by asking: Whose testimony do Christians accept as representing the true character of Jesus Christ? Certainly _not_ the testimony of the Sadducees and Pharisees; but the testimony of Matthew, of Mark, of Luke and John--"his friends and followers," the infidel exclaims--"_interested parties,_ bent on perpetuating the frauds he inaugurated!" Will the Christian world because of that preposterous claim that Christ's friends and followers are not proper witnesses of his life and character, give up the evidence supplied in the testimonies of his friends to the uprightness and purity of his life, and the divinity of himself and his mission? Ah, no! They will ask rather, "Who so competent to bear testimony of his life and the divinity of his character as those who intimately knew him, who lived with him, who shared his joys and his sorrows; who were in sympathy with his life's mission and could enter into its spirit?" I only ask that the same reasoning be applied to the testimony given by the friends of Joseph Smith.