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Show Page 94 And so Joseph Smith ordered it - Amasa Lyman, one of the first Vermont converts Orson Pratt made, took his place as the newest member of the 37 council. Orson Pratt had followed in the footsteps of seven of the original Quorum of Apostles; now there remained only his brother Parley, away in Liverpool, Young, Kimball, and William Smith. It seems quite certain that Orson Pratt still held tight to the principles of Mormonism - but he bolted out of confusion, surely aware of the evidence against his wife, and yet unable to leave her side. And, as Wilford Woodruff wrote, "John C. Bennett was the ruin of Orson Pratt." Now it developed that Bennett, who considered Sarah "an amiable and accomplished woman," had been accustomed to taking his meals with her during the long months of Orson's absence. It is to be remembered that she had been barely twenty-one, had recently lost her child, and in her lonely condition depended upon one family after another for sustenance. One of these families, the Goddards, felt an obligation to approach Orson with their understanding of Sarah's relationship to Bennett, and wrote him a letter soon after the public meeting in which Orson had denounced the Prophet. Stephen H. Goddard testified in his letter that he wanted to have kept "forever in silence" but felt it was his duty to report what he had seen between Bennett and Sarah while she stayed in his house during the autumn of 1840: "I took your wife into my house because she was destitute of a house, Oct. 6, 1840, and from the first night, until the last...the Dr. was there as sure as the night came... sometimes till after midnight; what his conversation was I could not tell, as they sat close together, he leaning on her lap, whispering continually or talking very low... We went over several times late in the evening while she lived in the house of Dr. Foster, and were most sure to find Dr. Bennett and your wife together, lying on the floor and the bed apparently reserved for the Dr. and herself...." 38 |