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Show Page 219 them a deadly blank, with the sun flaming overhead - pure light, but no heat, for the cold was excruciating. As the brethren breasted the snow, treading it down to make a path for the teams, they began to feel the pain, gritty torture in every blink of the eye. The next morning, Orson was quite blind. The severe brilliance had inflamed his eyes all through the preceding day as he led out, and now three apostles laid hands on him to administer in the name of the Holy Priesthood. But the searing whiteness continued. Buried in their robes, encrusted with ice, the brethren clutched frozen handkerchiefs to their faces to blot out the glare - maddened, they began to shelter by day under the 21 wagons and to travel by night when the light subsided into moon shine. Nearly iced through and with eyes festering, Orson arrived at Florence, Nebraska - the old site of Winter Quarters - and boarded the steamer "Polar Star" for St. Louis. The long voyage by Boston to Liverpool gave him time to heal, however, and upon his landing in England he had projected an entire book on the doctrines of Mormonism. Though in trouble at home for his writings, he was certain that, given a more systematic format he could logically develop the full implications of Mormon belief, from first principles to the most complex universal truths derivable. The chapters of this book came out piecemeal - one per month, beginning in August 1856 - under Church contract in Liverpool. The first installment entitled True Faith, is notable for its simplicity. This is not the florid philosppher at work, but a man who sees subtleties as obfuscation. Each point, in keeping with his Seer format, is numbered and logically builds on the preceding premises. In the next chapter, True Repentance, Orson constructs a brief for "the Divine Law of Plurality" as a panacea for all "criminal connexions, and they will soon be cleansed from the stench |
