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Show Page 214 Brigham made October conference 1855 an occasion to denounce Orson's views on the Bible, however. When he felt Orson the ideologue was taking over, he did not hesitate to check him, and on this point he was at his spiciest: "...people must be chastened; we believe in this principle... why I make this peculiar remark is because this congregation heard brother 0. Pratt scan the validity of the Bible, and I thought by the time he got through, that you would scarcely think a Bible worth picking up and carrying home, should you find one in the streets...the Bible is good enough just as it is...it used to answer...very well when I was preaching in the world." 10 After this little dig over the pulpit, the Prophet went on at some length to assure the congregation - and, indirectly, to appease Orson - that "the Lord loveth whom he chasteneth." Brigham announced, strangely, "It always takes something besides chastisement...to bring tears from me. I can cry for joy, I can cry on beholding my friends after being separated from them...." It is possible that Brigham refers to some scene of bitterness between himself and Orson - the implication, at least, is there. Orson continued to calculate and write on his own time despite the public attention given his errors. He had been wrestling for some time with the problem of planetary motion - with the irregularities and inconstancies he had both observed and read about. This inner impulse to discern order and meaning in the universe had pre-occupied him since youth, as he himself testifies. For a year he struggled with a formula that would predict planetary movements based on the observable density of the bodies: "Firmly believing, from my early youth, that the diurnal periods of the planets were the results of some hidden law, I have endeavored...to discover the same...to determine the periods...by calculation instead of observation...1 was led ...to seek for the law of rotation connected with the masses |
