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Show Page 298 last - while the Sacrament trays circulated: "It has been almost one year since I have been able to stand up before a congregation...1 am now blessed with the opportunity of occupying a few minutes, as long as my health would justify ...I am just able to stand upon my feet, most of the time scarcely able to sit up...Notwithstanding the afflictions of my body and the long silence that I have kept, I have felt the same enduring love for the principles of truth and for the people of God...Fifty one years ago tomorrow...I entered this Church...then confined to a small district in the State of New York...Tomorrow - if I live till tomorrow - I shall be seventy years of age...They are the years appointed to man... so far as my mind is concerned, my understanding, that is at rest, that is at peace. I know what my hopes are. I know the plan of salvation..." 73 To the congregation he was like a figure from another world, still hoping for missions to come, still praying for the "humble privilege of lifting up my voice and testifying, before thousands of people." He left his apostolic benediction upon the "people of Zion...May He favor us before many years with a full and complete redemption according to the promises...." Melancholy congratulations came around to Orson on his seventieth birthday, but the effort of the Sabbath had finished him. After trying to work in the Historian's Office, he was seized with vomiting and sank to his bed. He weakened steadily, infection and fever combined with the chemistry of destruction, and he listened in half-sleep to the bells of 74 the city tolling the death of Garfield two evenings later. The autumn days were now dark - there were crepe flutters everywhere, from flagstaffs and the pinnacles of Z.C.M.I., black pennants from the works of the Temple right down to the Chinese washhouses. On Sunday night, October 2, Orson awoke for the first time in two weeks and asked for his family. Slipping away again almost at once, he murmured to Joseph F. Smith, who was keeping vigil with him, the words for his epitaph: "My body sleeps for a moment, but my testimony lives and 75 J shall endure forever." The family rallied quickly, waiting outside for news - but when finally admitted, they saw only a peaceful old man slumbering |
