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Show Page 269 of creation in totally rational terms - if only it could be perceived and described. Orson spent much effort trying to communicate this to the Saints: "Professor 0. Pratt is to deliver a series of astronomical lectures under the auspices of the University of Deseret, every Tuesday and Friday evening until the course is completed...as the rooms of the university are not sufficiently spacious, it has been decided to throw open the Tabernacle, and to extend, free of charge, the privilege of hearing the lectures to all...Professor Pratt has given a great share of the time at his disposal, when not engaged in the ministry, to the subject of Astronomy, and its kindred science Mathematics, and in both he is acknowledged to have few superiors...." 4 Still popular because of the plural marriage debates, Orson drew audiences of three thousand and more to his lectures. He discussed planetary motion and formation, denounced the "nebular theory" of La Place as insufficient, and revealed some intriguing speculations about the sun, conjectures as to its origin and possible character as a "glorified world." Orson's "astro-theology" must have fascinated the Mormons; his lectures were reproduced in full in the Deseret News Weekly, which also commented with surprise on the size and animation of the audiences: "The learned professor must feel highly gratified at the great interest 4 manifested by the public." Whatever conflicts he had experienced because of his equal commitments to reason and revelation, they did not trouble him now. He could speak of both on alternate Sabbaths - one week his subject might be "Zion," the next week he might delve into "The Nature of Light." He was not afflicted by the intense rush of religious doubt that flooded the scientific community in the mid-Nineteenth Century; his contempt for the closed systems of sectarianism came from a "revealed" perspective rather than a scientific one. The world of knowledge was open for the Saints to explore, because, as Orson believed, next to nothing was really under- |