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Show Page 231 the Church. Orson's advice was sought on the correctness of a pirated version of the Book of Mormon published in New York - he pronounced it unusually precise. Brigham was gratified, for he hoped to pull the royalties away from its printers. Also engaged in writing books, Orson and his friend George D. Watt produced a speller for the territorial schools, mostly transcribed from Webster's dictionary, casting it into the "Deseret Alphabet" as well. As chancellor of the University of Utah, Orson nominally headed the school system of the territory, but there was little indeed to work with - he estimated it would cost a million 50 dollars to furnish books and educate all the children in Utah. Orson's speculative nature was also becoming more and more out of place in Brigham Young's committee room. Late in 1859, his discourses in the tabernacle leaned more and more to the ethereal, making his subject "the inexhaustibility of the fountain of light from which the Saints draw their intelligence." When the authorities met to consider a successor for Parley P- Pratt in the Quorum of Twelve, Orson speculated that perhaps offices in the priesthood were to be considered hereditary, and that, according to the patriarchal pattern, Parley P. Pratt, Junior, should 52 fill his father's place. The meeting closed with remarkable abruptness at that point, when Brigham Young nominated George Q. Cannon to fill the vacancy. No longer distracted by the threat of war, Brigham had turned once again to setting the kingdom in order. Orson Pratt's writings, so well-known in the Church and, to Brigham's mind, skirting heresy, had to be dealt with. On January 27, 1860, Orson attended a meeting of the First Presidency, the Twelve, and the First Council of Seventy - an extraordinary gathering, indeed - to find himself the subject of discussion. George D. Watt's phonographic report of Orson's sermons was brought out, and Brigham |