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Show Page 179 there would be no inheritance until after "great tribulation." Orson also points to Joseph's prediction that the Saints would be driven "from city to city, from synagogue to synagogue," and attributed the failure to achieve Zion in Missouri to those Saints who were ill-prepared spiritually to inherit the "New Jerusalem." His reasoning became the stock institutional response to this question, and demonstrated to his 28 own satisfaction the validity of Joseph's predictions. The news from home rumbled with apocalyptic possibilities, and Orson felt the New Jerusalem was not far away. Wilford Woodruff wrote to him on two occasions: "...the slave question is now the great bone of contention...laying a firm and sure foundation for the overthrow of this government...All parties have now ceased ridiculing the idea of dissolving the American Union...Brother Pratt, the storm is coming and no 29 mistake." While Congress raged over the parity between slave and free America, Orson and his fellows watched, not without a certain retributive arch of the brow, for the sword of heaven to descend on the country they had tried to escape. Utah, wrote Parley, had become a highway for fugitives and gold seekers. "Scores or hundreds of people arrive daily to rest or refit... a good carriage road runs from the Weber to the Provo, great numbers of strangers attend our meetings now every Sabbath, we feel as if we were about in the middle of the world, and in as good a place to preach the 30 gospel to all the world as can be found." Parley had, of course, weathered the first two years in the Salt Lake Valley, and advised Orson to get himself a herd of good heifers on returning, for this offered the best foundation for making a living in the wild grazing country. From Orson Spencer came the dear news that 560 acres had been reserved near |