2. This missionary movement at a time when it may be said that the whole country was "up in arms" against the Church, and its fortunes were apparently desperate, is truly an astonishing thing. And yet such missionary movements have become quite characteristic of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Its fortunes have never been at so low an ebb but what it could always undertake some great missionary enterprise. For example, when apostasy was rife in Kirtland, and the powers of darkness seemed massed for its overthrow, the Prophet, "to save the Church," organized and sent forth a mission to Great Britain; and now from upper Missouri, when the whole organization seemed to be in danger of disintegration, a mission is nevertheless organized to go into the Southern States to preach the Gospel. In later volumes of this work we shall also see that in 1850, when the whole body of the Mormon people had been expatriated from their country and fled into the desert wilderness of the Rocky mountain region, and when it was generally supposed that the world had practically seen the last of Mormonism, and when the Saints still had before them the task of subduing a wilderness, and many thousands of their people yet to gather from the East, where they were in a scattered condition, and the very existence of the people to human eyes seemed precarious, lo! a world-wide mission was organized and members of the quorum of Apostles were sent from the Church in the wilderness, into Scandinavia, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland. This missionary spirit so characteristic of the Church, and to which it so staunchly adheres in all its fortunes, proclaims the genius of the work. The primary purpose of the Church's existence is to proclaim the truth of which it is the sacred depository, and after that to perfect the lives of those who receive its message. In proportion to its devotion to these two grand objects of its existence, has been and always will be the measure of its success. 3. John Taylor was born November 1st, 1808, in Milnthorp, a small town near the head of Morecombe bay, and not far from Windemere, the "Queen of English Lakes," in the country of Westmoreland, England. His father's name was James Taylor, whose forefathers for many generations had lived on an estate known as Craig Gate, in Ackenthwaite. John Taylor's mother's name was Agnes; her maiden name was also Taylor. Her Grandfather, Christopher Taylor, lived to be ninety-seven years of age. His son John, father of Agnes, held an office in the excise under the government from his first setting out in life to the age of about sixty. The maiden name of Agnes Taylor's mother was Whittington, a descendant of the family made famous by Richard Whittington, the younger son of Sir William Whittington.