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Show Page 54 Pratt, testifying to a rapidly acquired fluency that would give him a scholarly edge thirty years later when he faced the U.S. Senate chaplain in a debate over the correct translation of Leviticus - in front of eleven thousand people. Orson's class had worked specifically with the problem of Biblical translation, working over, sentence by sentence, the 10 Book of Genesis, chapters 17 through 22. Orson's enthusiasm for self-education led to a first attempt at school-teaching during December 1835. While boarding at his friend Lyman Johnson's Orson advertised an evening lecture on English grammar, which he delivered December 2. He was apparently well enough satisfied with his abilities to teach an evening school for about two weeks following. In that day, school-teaching often involved practitioners only a little more lettered than their charges. By February, Orson had received his certificate from Seixas, qualifying him to teach Hebrew. It is of course impossible to estimate Orson's level of competence in English and Hebrew grammar, except to point out that his contemporaries thought him not only capable, but, by their standards, extraordinarily so. In addition, given the reputation of 11 Seixas as Hebrew teacher and lexicographer, the certificate he gave Orson must have testified to an unusual level of confidence in the pupil. Orson's spiritual and scholarly life evolved in concert with the new "House of the Lord" at Kirtland. On one level a sanctuary and on another level a school, the temple came to signify for many, including Orson Pratt, that glorification was dependent upon intelligence. When the Kirtland scholars moved into the upper story in January 1836, the study of grammar, mathematics, and geography became forever intertwined with the dignity of the spiritual ordinances which were introduced simultaneously into the house. As the completion of the temple neared, so did the calling of the |