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Show Page 273 of plural marriage, contrasting it with the tawdriness of being "joined 12 together by a justice of the peace." He reiterated the Biblical grounding forpplygamy, that the gates of the New Jerusalem "will be inscribed with the names of twelve polygamous children" - the tribes of Israel 13 - and that Deuteronomy clearly sustains the practice. Orson Pratt, along with the other authorities, settled in for a brooding siege while the courts reviewed the anti-polygamy laws. They were clearly tired of the fight, but kept quiet and refused to say more than was necessary - Orson published a brisk denial of rumors that he had been arrested on polygamy charges, but was careful to say nothing about the circumstances of anyone else. He looked around now and saw men who were his brethren, struggling to maintain their families and covenants in the face of legal persecution - men, like himself, encumbered with whitening beards. He noted the lameness of Brigham Young, John Taylor's eyes in their darkened sockets, and then at himself. Now over sixty, Orson inevitably began to think with a summary perspective; he had the "winding-up scene" in view, and, looking back with both anxiety and satisfaction, he took up the historian's pen. Increasingly, Orson's discourses turned into reminiscences. Wistfully, he wished that someone "with a good memory" would write a small plain 14 history of Joseph Smith, and smiled to recall what a "slow and awkward 15 writer" was the man who produced the Book of Mormon. One winter morning in the Tabernacle, Orson reflected for a few moments on the revelation he had received when nineteen years old from the Prophet's mouth: "I wonder if I have fulfilled that commandment as I ought to have done...felt sometimes to condemn myself for my slothfulness and little progress...to prophesy out of my own heart is something perfectly disagreeable to my feelings...I have oftentimes avoided...when a thing would come before my mind pretty plain, uttering or declaring it for fear that I might get something out...that was wrong. I have endeavored...to inform my mind as far as I could |