OCR Text |
Show Page 283 they achieved Piano, a town not far from Chicago, where the Reorganized Church maintained headquarters - they hoped to meet with Joseph Smith III and obtain an interview. More especially, they sought an examination of the manuscript of Joseph Smith's "New Translation" of the Bible. To their chagrin, Smith was absent in Iowa conducting a conference, and his printers did not know where the manuscript was kept. Orson and the Salt Lake Joseph F. Smith were received with surprising warmth among these old-time Mormons,who even requested them to preach at a prayer meeting. They declined at first, but when the leaders insisted, Orson stood to speak. Polygamy had largely engendered the schism between "Josephites" and the Utah Saints, Orson well knew, and so he would speak frankly and from a personal perspective on the subject: "Lyman Johnson, who was very familiar with Joseph at this early date - Joseph living at his father's house, and... we having traveled on several missions together - told me himself that Joseph had made known to him as early as 1831, that plural marriage was a correct principle. Joseph declared to Lyman that God had revealed it to him, but that the time had not come to teach or practise it in the Church; but that the time would come." Orson went on to detail sealings he had seen performed by the Prophet Joseph Smith, one as early as April 5, 1841 - this because the "Josephites" disputed the Prophet's involvement in the origin of the polygamy doctrine. He then, surprisingly, referred to his own trial "in regard to this matter in Nauvoo." In one of his few public statements on his excommunication, he said he had got his information "from a wicked source, from those disaffected," but as soon as he learned the truth he was satisfied. From Piano, the two men proceeded east through Kirtland - the "Josephites' owned the temple there, using it as a meetinghouse - and near Rochester they decided to visit Cumorah, which Orson had never seen. With the support |