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Show Page 246 in Vienna eventually gave him a shrug, refused him a visa, and turned him back to the German authorities. Forced to face the greatest of his few missionary reversals, he returned to Britain with high spirits deflated. To Juliaet he wrote: "No one is permitted to teach any religion but the Catholic, either publicly or privately, under heavy penalties. No one is permitted to give away or circulate pamphlets or books under a penalty. No stranger can visit the country without passports. The whole country swarms with police officers whose duty it is to put about one hundred and one questions to all travelers, among which you must inform them where you are from, where you are going, what your business is, how much money you have, what hotel you put up at, how long you intend stopping. You cannot visit from place to place without informing the police." In the Millennial Star he raged against his banishment and called down tides of heavenly fire on the Christians of the Austrian Empire: "0 Austria! the stronghold of Catholicism! Why have you so framed your unholy laws, that the light of truth cannot penetrate your country? Why have you effectually shut out all religious liberty...? Why do you imprison those who meet together to read the Bible? Why do you banish the servants of the Most High from your dominions...Do you vainly flatter yourselves that God will not call you to an account...That you can forever revel in your filth, and glory in the abundance of your whoredoms?...Woes, fearful desolations, and raging pestilences, will sweep over your guilty provinces, and the end thereof shall be with consuming fire." 22 Nevertheless, Orson loved the Old World and knew that Brigham would call for him when the news of Austrian recalcitrance reached home - the possibility of another exile to the Dixie desert made him wistful. In Edinburgh he noted sadly that this might be his last visit to the city that had rewarded him so richly twenty-five years before, and at a conference in Kent, he told of an old vision, a dream he had had when he was just a new member of the Church: "(I) had a dream of a high wall...upon reaching the top (I) saw the cities of the east, and was told to fly over them with a trumpet. The missions which I have filled have all been in fulfillment of that dream, having always hp.en eastward...." 23 |