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Show Page 49 superhuman. They were indeed, great men - not by virtue of the flesh, nor their own natural capacities, but they were great because God called them. When Joseph told me that I would be one of the Twelve, I knew all things were possible with God, but it seemed to me that I would have to be altogether changed to occupy 40 such a great position in the Church and Kingdom of our God." These events, to Orson prodigious and no doubt sobering, were capped three days later when Joseph Smith, Senior, pronounced a "patriarchal blessing" on Orson Pratt, in the absence of his own father, Jared, who at the time was not strong of mind "in consequence of his infirmities." The evangelical blessing promised the privileges of Jacob upon Orson's posterity, an assurance on account of his prior faithfulness that Satan would have no power over him, and a prediction that he would go to the ends of the earth to "speak forth marvelous things." Most significant 41 for Orson, he was to "tarry until the Savior comes." Such a millennial assurance provided a fitting climax to this period of Orson's youthful zeal as a missionary; in later years, when his preaching grew more abstract and speculative, all his theories remained nevertheless undergirded by an eschatology of literalness and the promise of his own personal presence at the apocalypse. |
