But the Saints were no more to have the privelege in this life of seeing the face and hearing the voice of President Taylor. Though his age had been as a lusty winter, frosty but kindly; though in his youth never had he partaken of hot and rebellious liquors to inflame or contaminate his blood, nor with unbashful forehead wooed the means of weakness and debility, yet his long exile and the confinement incidental thereto, at last broke down his health. Notwithstanding the kind attentions of his associates in exile, and trusted friends who gladly received him into their houses, their friendly administrations could not fill the place of home and its joys, its happy reunions and associations. Nor could he have that regular exercise in exile that he would have had in freedom. Add to these things the cares and anxieties forced upon him by reason of the unwarranted and inhuman assaults made upon himself and the people over whom he presided, and you have at once the causees of his last illness and death. Had it not been for these things President Taylor undoubtedly would have lived many years longer to direct the affairs of the Church of Christ.

His health commenced failing about a year before his death, but his last illness began about five months before that sad event. Sustained by his marvelous willpower, he resisted the approach of death with all his characteristic determination . He would neither permit himself nor others to believe that he was seriously ill. But his decreasing inclination to take what little exercise he could under the circumstances ; and periods of prostration occurring with increasing frequency, told its own story as to how the battle was going.

. . .

It was at the house of Thomas F. Rouche, of Kaysville, that President Taylor was fighting out this last battle, with such remarkable determination. On the above named evening, the few friends who were permitted to be with him, among whom were his two Counselors, two of his wives, Mary Oakey Taylor and Maggie Young Taylor, and the Rouche family, were gathered about his bed as he slowly sank under the hand of Death. He was passing away without a struggle, quietly as a child falls asleep. At five minutes to eight o'clock, "the weary wheels of life stood still"—the great spirit had left its earthly tabernacle.