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Show Page 247 To discourage him even further, worse news awaited him in Britain than he had left behind him in Austria. Brigham Young had once again taken up the crusade against his writings. Four apostles, apparently at the instigation of George Q. Cannon, had met in Brigham's office in June 1865 to read over once again the essays Great First Cause and Holy Spirit, which, though long years in print, struck them for the first time on this collective reading as another manifestation of Orson Pratt's doctrinal "wildness." The President asked the others what should be done - the consensus: to destroy the works. Although Orson's public acknowledgment of his errors was available in the printed discourses, still the offending works could be found in every Latter-day Saint library and in the hands of many missionaries sworn to dispense only gospel truth to their hearers. Brigham immediately began the work of suppression. To over six thousand people gathered under the vault of the new Tabernacle, Brigham Young began a detailed denunciation of the doctrinal speculations of Apostle Orson Pratt. The congregation included prominent Republicans visiting from the East in the party of Mr. Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the House and future Vice President of the United States. Brigham launched out against his own without hesitation, however: "Orson Pratt has written extensively...when he writes... upon subjects which he understands, he is a very sound reasoner; but when he has written upon matters of which he knows nothing, his own philosophy, which I call vain...he is wild, uncertain and contradictory..." 24 A few days later, George Q. Cannon wrote up an encyclical under Brigham's eye giving exact references from Orson's works that were held unsound and heterodox in spirit. This document went with Brigham up and down the Wasatch, as he preached against Holy Spirit and Great First Cause in stakes and wards from Nephi to Salt Lake - to those he could not |