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Show Page 228 Orson mounted the podium that Sabbath day clearly tired and not a little bitter: "I begin to be almost weary in trying to carry salvation to the wicked nations of the Gentiles; and because of the many years that I have spent on missions, I find myself almost a stranger in the midst of the Saints at home. There are now but very few that I can recognize... If any one should ask me where my home has been for the last quarter-of-a-century, I should answer - Among the nations; for that has been my...abiding place ever since the year 1830." But despite his fatigue and confessed loneliness, there was no despondence; he felt stronger in the work than ever and confident that the Saints had nothing to fear from the threatened conflagration: "When we were...tried, we went forth and whipped out the religious world spiritually...1 must say to the Latter-day Saints...that the same God who has strengthened them to overcome their enemies spiritually will be their defence...Wherefore the righteous need not fear, for thus saith the Prophet, they shall be saved, even if it so be as by fire...'You need not fear.' Do you hear it, Latter-day Saints? You need not fear..." 41 Orson's words of encouragement seemed highly optimistic, though, and when a "council of war" was called among the apostles, Brigham unveiled his plan: to go into the desert after burning everything, and to let the armies destroy themselves. When general conference convened in late March, the word went out - everyone was to prepare to set the torch to all that stood upright or grew in the ground of Utah. Plans for the destruction of the city were laid before the people, and Orson was specifically directed to begin moving his families and herds to Fillmore. It looked like the beginning of a new exile, with no end in sight this time. Various places of refuge were bandied about, and some foreign agents arrived among the Saints with overseas colonization offers. In Provo, Orson and the others met in council with a man named Cooper who was promoting development of the "Mosquito Coast" of Panama - no one was more lukewarm about this possibility than Orson, |