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Show Page 156 into the Jordan for a bath, certainly well-appreciated, as anyone would agree who has worn a gritty coat on his skin after swimming in the 42 Great Salt Lake. But the brethren were too busy founding a city to spend much time exploring. That afternoon they accompanied Brigham back to the settlement, where they walked to a level spot between the twin forks and designated a site for a holy temple: "On motion of Orson Pratt it was unanimously voted that the temple be built on (this) site...that the city lots be one and a quarter acres, and that the streets be eight rods wide. "We proceeded to lay out a site for the city, which we called GREAT SALT LAKE CITY. The streets were laid out eight rods wide, running at right angles, and forming the city into square blocks of ten acres each...One block of ten acres was reserved for a temple. The latitude of the northern boundary of the temple block I ascertained by meridian observation of the sun to be 40 deg. 45 min. 44 sec. The longitude...7 hours 25 min. 46 sec. west of Greenwich." 43 With the heavenly city now located in time and space, the pioneers met to hear the voice of their foremost theologian on August 1, 1847. Orson had looked over the sage desert, to the "utmost bounds of the everlasting hills," and a revelation formed in his soul as he spoke to the sun-blackened sons of Israel under a makeshift bowery built of rushes, where the Tabernacle of God would one day stand. "...we can build up a city to the Lord. For many years I have not read that good old book, but I remember the predictions in it and some that are now very nearly fulfilled by us. Isaiah says, speaking of the city of Zion ...'Thou shalt be called, Sought out, A city not forsaken ...Isaiah and Joel both spake very plainly on this subject. 'It shall come to pass in the last days that the house of the Lord shall be established in the tops of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills.' In what part of the earth could it be established more than in this place...In the midst of the spires of the mountains." 44 |