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Show Page 198 Orson preached twenty lectures at the Temperance Hall in the shadow of the half-finished Capitol, but few attended: "...not one soul have I found in Washington." But he felt his greatest responsibility at the office of The Seer. Once again he was free to publish, and the copious articles of the magazine bear Orson's unmistakable stamp. The Seer was his outlet, he had founded it, and he was determined to open up to this high place the theophanous radiance of Mormon revelation. Soon after his arrival, Orson received a letter from Young that urged him on his philosophizing way, although the Prophet's words bore a curious tone: "We feel assured that ere this you have accomplished the desert trip and before this reaches you, you will be at your destination snugly ensconced in some office or room, busily engaged in forcibly illustrating, elucidating, and demonstrating to the understanding of the children of men, the principles of our Holy Religion...the excavation for your house is completed and some lumber is on hand...I remain truly and sincerely, your friend and brother..." 23 Despite the assurances, the Prophet sounds more than a little bemused by the pedagogical pretensions of his colleague. The first numbers of The Seer appeared January 1, 1853, under a bizarre seal with an open eye staring cabalistically out of a framed heart; its pages advocated gathering to the mountains, along with doctrinal topics such as the pre-existence of man, which repeated essentially his arguments from Great First Cause. But its emphasis was on "celestial marriage" as a natural proceeding from belief in the patterns of the Bible. The famous revelation was printed verbatim in the first issue to dispel any doubt that the "patriarchal order" to the Mormons was a bona fide religious tenet and not a mere expedient to rationalize luxuriousness. Fully twelve numbers of The Seer were devoted to the article on preexistence and to the treatise on polygamy, "Celestial Marriage." Orson |