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Show Page 81 book broke roughly into two parts: a first section deals only with the experiences of Joseph Smith and the coming forth of the Book of Mormon from the tales told him by Joseph Smith himself. The story of the Angel Moroni and the revelation of the golden plates was well-known among Mormons - not so well-known was the account of the vision of the Father and the Son to the fourteen-year-old Prophet. It does not differ in great detail from subsequent accounts, nor from the version presumably dictated by Joseph Smith in 1838 and later incorporated into the scriptures of the Church. Certain illustrative details, such as Joseph's forgiveness for sins and his expectation that the sacred grove would be consumed in the divine illumination distinguish this from other 11 tellings. A second portion of the pamphlet, of greater interest as an exposition of Orson Pratt's religious thought, constitutes a dissertation on the faith and doctrine of the Mormon Church. It is written in the form familiar to most Mormons through their "Articles of Faith," an 1842 summa of Mormonism drawn in part from Orson's pamphlet, and to Christendom in general as it reflects the creedal formulae of the major denominations. Each main point begins with the characteristic "We believe..." The tone is legalistic, as opposed to transcendental or mystical; the emphasis on a proper understanding of the gospel " in great plainness" and equates salvation with the acquisition of "all knowledge, wisdom, and intelligence." There is none of the passion and flourish of his brother Parley, but the individual stamp is nonetheless clear - exactness, simplicity, a certain scholarly distance, expounding on salvation in the tones of the mathematician. In its attention to such peculiar details as the construction and dimensions of the Cumorah "vault", Orson's pamphlet illustrates the aura of material reality which invested |
