OCR Text |
Show Page 24 While Orson carried out his night-time vigils through the summer of 1830, his brother Parley underwent similar wrestlings with "the darkness 39 of myself." In a sort of ecstatic desperation, Parley cut himself loose from the homestead in Ohio and felt urged by the Holy Spirit to return to his native place as a Campbellite missionary. Nearly penniless, he shipped to Buffalo by offering to take the helm when the hands were off duty, arrived at Rochester, and suddenly felt constrained to stop in the neighborhood of Bloomfield, some miles south of the canal, where he began rounding up preaching appointments. Elijah Hamlin, a deacon of the local Baptist congregation, entertained the young Campbellite with the story of the "golden bible" which he had recently acquired. The next day Parley borrowed Hamlin's copy of the Book of Mormon, only six months in print, and became immediately obsessed with its message. He soon"demanded" baptism at the hands of Hyrum Smith of Palmyra, New York, brother of the prophet-translator Joseph Smith, who was then residing in Pennsylvania, and after confirmation and ordination to the office of elder, continued his way to his original destination in Columbia County. With the fervor of an Abraham descending into the land of his inheritance, Parley came preaching his new religion in Canaan, "a pleasant and retired mountain valley...consisting of farming lands and pasture... their summits and bosoms partially clothed with a beautiful forest of pine and chestnut...." Few of these "Canaanites" responded, but among his own family Parley roused some interest in the Book of Mormon message. His father's family chose at that time to maintain their neutral tradition - 40 with the exception of the young seeker, Orson. In the dark September woods, Orson had continued his petitions, finding in them a measure of spiritual warmth, a lonely union with God even in an environment of theological fragmentation. For Orson, the Book of Mormon |