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Page 43 31 and authoritarian notions about holy priesthood. Afterward, Orson went proselytizing in western New York, when his mission was again interrupted by a conference announcement calling for an expedition of young men to"go and assist in the redemption of Zion." At twenty-two, Orson Pratt was already as seasoned a laborer as the Mormon Church could boast. His millenarian zeal, firmly grounded in an eschatology of total self-consecration, now spurred him to join the apocalyptic army, ready to do battle for the Center Place - for all he knew, this might be the call to Armageddon. In contrast with the lonely foray he and his brother made in 1831, this march to Missouri would bring together hundreds of Mormon priests, sanctified and orderly, driving against modern Canaanites under a modern Joshua. Orson referred to this small army as the "camp of Israel," having been appointed to captaincy of twenty men and four wagons. He pulled out on May 1, 1834, inaugurating the march with a sermons upon the "second coming of Christ and Millennium, and the Saints inheriting the earth forever." The camp, although deeply concerned with preparations for possible armed conflict, maintained their Israelitish: fervor and called down many"miracles"for their own preservation. Where other Christians spoke metaphorically of life as a pilgrimage, the men of Zion's Camp felt themselves to be on a literal "glory road." Orson's brother, Parley, for example, heard a providential voice one morning warning him awake, while others delighted in the discovery of a"Lamanite" battleground and the skeleton of a "white Lamanite," a somber reminder that even the righteous often fall in defense of the kingdom. Hardship soon overcame the camp in the form of summer heat and disease. The miasmic climate which had laid Parley and Orson low three years before contributed to the misery of the cholera which overtook the camp in Missouri. |
