Chapter 3, Orson Pratt: The Paul of Mormonism?

Introduction

The most prolific and perhaps most influential early Mormon pamphleteer was Orson Pratt. From the time of his conversion in 1830 to his death in 1881, he authored a variety of works on both religious and scientific topics. Because of his productivity and influence as an early Mormon author, it is necessary to devote an entire chapter to his life and work.

Orson Pratt’s stature was large during his own lifetime and it has only increased since his death. Writing for the Church’s centennial in 1930, John Henry Evans observed:

In the first century of “Mormonism” there is no leader of the intellectual stature of Orson Pratt. . . .

When everything is said and done, it will be found that he traveled more miles on land and sea delivering the Word; that he brought more people into the Fold through his spoken and written message; that, with the exception of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, he was in the vanguard of more undertakings; and that he was more prolific in his written defense of the Faith—than any other man that can be mentioned.

Orson Pratt was a leader, a pioneer, a preacher, a writer; and there were other leaders, pioneers, preachers and authors. But Orson Pratt was also a philosopher and thinker, and in this respect he stood alone among his brethren during the first one hundred years of the Faith.¹

Such a glowing tribute is representative of Mormon salutes to Orson Pratt. In Nauvoo, W. W. Phelps labeled him the “Gauge of Philosophy,” a title that has proven popular with Mormon writers.² In 1873 T. B. H. Stenhouse wrote: ^[93]

his better education and eminent ability as a writer and reasoner have preserved him more a missionary than a farmer; he is, emphatically the gospel-apostle of the Twelve. During his mission to Europe, his pen furnished the first logical arguments in favour of Mormonism, and his influence spread like a consuming fire among the Saints throughout the Old World. He aroused the ambition and excited the zeal of young and old to spread abroad the new faith, and, armed as they were with his arguments, they scoured the country and invited discussion wherever they went.³

Three years later, in 1876, Edward Tullidge called Orson Pratt the “Paul of Mormonism,”⁴ suggesting Orson’s seminal contribution in Mormon theology. At Orson Pratt’s funeral, on 6 October 1881, Wilford Woodruff eulogized him, suggesting that he had “traveled more miles, preached more sermons, and [had written] more upon the gospel and upon science than any other man in the Church.”⁵

In the first scholarly study of Orson Pratt’s life, written by T. Edgar Lyon as a Master’s thesis at the University of Chicago in 1932, the author asserts:

Looking back over the first century of Mormonism, it becomes increasingly evident that Orson Pratt did more to formulate the Mormon idea of God, the religious basis of polygamy (polygyny), the pre-existence of spirits, the doctrine of the gathering, the resurrection, and eternal salvation than any other person in the Church, with the exception of Joseph Smith.⁶

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Due to his efforts more than to any other person’s the odds and ends of Joseph Smith’s utterances were constructed and expanded into a philosophic system.⁷

When Leonard Arrington surveyed fifty prominent Mormon scholars in 1968 on their opinions concerning who were the leading intellectuals in the history of the Mormon Church, Orson Pratt was mentioned second only to B. H. Roberts (35 votes to 30). Orson received more votes than Joseph Smith (19) or his own brother Parley (5).^8 [94]

Orson Pratt—His Life⁹

Orson was baptized on his nineteenth birthday, 19 September 1830 by his brother Parley who had brought the message of Mormonism to him not long after he himself had been baptized into the newly organized Church of Jesus Christ. Of Orson’s youth little is known. He was born at Hartford, Washington County, New York, on 19 September 1811. He was descended from English and Puritan stock. His parents were Jared Pratt and Charity Dickinson. Orson was next to the youngest of their six children, five of whom were sons.¹⁰ His father was a weaver and farmer, who seems to have had no faith in creeds or churches, but who taught his children to be moral and to believe in the Bible. Parley recalled of their father:

He was a man of excellent morals; and he exerted himself diligently by stern example as well as precept, to instill into the minds of his children, every principle of integrity, honesty, honor and virtue.¹¹

Presumably his mother assisted in this teaching.

In a personal history prepared for the Deseret News in 1858 Orson recalled some of the details of his youth. In 1814 or 1815 his family moved to New Lebanon, Columbia County, New York, and for several months each year for the next seven years he attended school. Assisted by this schooling, his parents taught him to read the Bible, although he could not remember attending church more than a few times during his youth. While it may have been an afterthought, he remembered in 1858 that it was during these early years (ages six–ten) that he “often had many serious impressions in regard to God and a future state.” ^[95]

In 1822, at age ten, he left home to work on a farm for a neighbor named Justin Jones. He worked for Jones until the autumn of 1823, with some time off during the winter to attend school. He next worked about eighteen months for a Mr. Church in Canaan, New York. It was during this time he first studied arithmetic. In the spring of 1825 he went with Anson, his oldest brother, to Long Island, New York, and that autumn had an opportunity to study arithmetic and bookkeeping. The next spring he was apprenticed to a cabinetmaker in New York but, as he recalled, “after tarrying a few months, I was taken violently sick and brought very low, so that my recovery, for some time, was considered doubtful.”

In the spring of 1827 he returned to Canaan, New York, and, after his health began to mend, went to Ohio with his brothers Parley and Nelson. In 1828–29 he made several trips back and forth to New York, and during the next winter spent four months at a boarding school studying geography, grammar, and surveying. Interestingly, it was while he was pursuing these subjects (all of which remained lifetime interests) that he began seeking a religious experience. He recalled:

From the age of ten to nineteen I saw much of the world, and was tossed about without any permanent abiding place; but through the grace of God, I was kept from any of the evils to which young people are exposed; the early impressions of morality and religion, instilled into my mind by my parents, always remained with me; and I often felt a great anxiety to be prepared for a future state; but never commenced, in real earnest, to seek after the Lord, until the autumn of 1829. I then began to pray very fervently, repenting of every sin. In the silent shades of night, while others were slumbering upon their pillows, I often retired to some secret place in the lonely fields or solitary wilderness, and bowed to the Lord, and ^[96] prayed for hours with a broken heart and contrite spirit; this was for the Lord to manifest His will concerning me. I continued to pray in this fervent manner until September, 1830, at which time two Elders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, came into the neighborhood, one of which was my brother Parley. They held several meetings which I attended.¹²

Following his baptism he traveled to Fayette, New York to see Joseph Smith. On 4 November 1830, after inquiring about his new responsibilities as a member of the Church, he was called to the ministry and commanded by revelation to:

lift up your voice as with the sound of a trump, both long and loud, and cry repentance unto a crooked and perverse generation preparing the way of the Lord for his second coming.¹³

Having been ordained an Elder by Joseph Smith, he was sent (ca. 1 December) to Colesville, New York, on the first of his many missions. As he later recalled:

Those were happy days to me. To see a prophet of the living God, to look on a man whom the Lord had raised up to bring forth one of the most glorious records that ever saluted the ears of mortal man, was to me almost equal to beholding the face of an holy angel! Yet, when I took that journey, and first beheld his countenance, I did not certainly know that he was a prophet. I believed him to be such because of the purity of the doctrine that I had heard preached which he had brought forth. I knew it was a scriptural doctrine, agreeing in every respect with the ancient gospel. For although but a boy, I had already become acquainted in some measure, with the doctrines of the various religious sects of the day, but none of them satisfied me, none of them seemed to coincide with the word of God. I stood aloof from all, until I heard this, when my mind became fully satisfied that God had raised up a people to proclaim the gospel in all its ancient beauty and simplicity, with power to administer in its ordinances. That was a great satisfaction, so far as faith was concerned, but still I sought for a knowledge. I felt as though I was not qualified to stand before the people, and tell them that the Book of Mormon was a divine revelation, and that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, unless I had a stronger testimony than that afforded by ancient prophets. However great my assurance might be, it seemed to me, that to know for myself, it required a witness independent of the testimony of others. I sought for this witness. I did ^[97] not receive it immediately, but when the Lord saw the integrity of my heart and the anxiety of my mind—when He saw that I was willing to travel hundreds of miles for the sake of learning the principles of the truth, He gave me a testimony for myself, which conferred upon me the most perfect knowledge that Joseph Smith was a true prophet, and that this book, called the Book of Mormon, was in reality a Divine revelation, and that God had once more, in reality, spoken to the human family. What joy this knowledge gave me! No language that I am acquainted with could describe the sensations I experienced when I received a knowledge from Heaven of the truth of this work.¹⁴

After working part of the month in Colesville with Hyrum Smith and Newel Knight, Orson returned to Fayette. The next year, he went to Kirtland, Ohio, and then to Jackson County, Missouri, identified in July of that year as the location of Zion. He returned to Kirtland by December 1831 and on 2 February 1832 he was ordained a High Priest by Sidney Rigdon. The next day Orson left on another mission, this time to the Eastern States.

For the next several years he undertook many short-term missions in the United States and Canada. In addition, he attended the School of the Prophets in Kirtland, Ohio, marched to Missouri with Zion’s Camp in 1834, was ordained one of the Standing High Council in Missouri (July 1834) and even acted for a short time as a clerk for Joseph Smith.

In February 1835 Orson was chosen as one of the members of the newly organized Quorum of Twelve Apostles. He recalled:

In that early day the prophet Joseph said to me that the Lord had revealed that twelve men were to be chosen as Apostles. A manuscript revelation to this effect, given in 1829—before the rise of this Church—was laid before me, and I read it. Joseph said to me, although I was young, weak, inexperienced, especially in public speaking, and ignorant of many important things which we now all understand, that I should be one of this Twelve. It seemed to me a very great saying. I ^[98] looked upon the Twelve Apostles who lived in ancient days with a great deal of reverence—as being almost superhuman. They were, indeed, great men—not by virtue of the flesh, nor their own natural capacities, but they were great because God called them. When Joseph told me that I would be one of the Twelve, I knew all things were possible with God, but it seemed to me that I would have to be altogether changed to occupy such a great position in the Church and Kingdom of our God.¹⁵

Four months later he baptized Sarah M. Bates while on another mission to the East. A year later she became his first wife.¹⁶ During the winter before his marriage, he began his study of Hebrew grammar. It was while studying Hebrew with members of the School of the Prophets that he revealed his argumentative side by debating a finer point of the pronunciation of a Hebrew letter with Joseph Smith. We do not know exactly how the argument arose, but Joseph Smith recorded that Orson was stubborn and that only after a while did he calm down and ask for forgiveness.¹⁷ Orson remembered that it was during the winter months of 1836–37 that he began studying algebra without a teacher.

During the next few years several aspects of Orson’s personality emerged. Membership in the Quorum of the Twelve¹⁸ enhanced his stature, but his behavior was, at times, erratic. For example, in 1837, during the dark days of Kirtland, he joined one of his fellow Apostles in signing a statement of charges against Joseph Smith:

To the Bishop and his council in Kirtland, the stake of Zion:

We prefer the following charges against President Joseph Smith, Jr. viz. for lying and misrepresentation—also ^[99] for extortion—and for speaking disrespectfully against his brethren behind their backs.

[s.] Lyman E. Johnson
Orson Pratt
Kirtland May 29, 1837¹⁹

This “apostasy” was short-lived, and by 1839 he was on his way with his fellow Apostles to do missionary work in the British Isles. Leaving New York on 9 March 1840, he eventually arrived in Liverpool, England on 6 April 1840. Though “penniless and strangers,” he and his companions baptized about 8000 people in about twelve months.²⁰ Orson was assigned to Scotland, and although he discovered the difficulty of converting a Scotsman, he managed in nine months to raise up a branch of 200 members in Edinburgh. It was while on this mission that he published his first pamphlet, An Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions . . . (Edinburgh, 1840). Within this tract of 31 pages was the first public recording of Joseph Smith’s First Vision and a list of fifteen “Articles of Faith,” which some have suggested served as the basis for those Joseph Smith appended to his letter two years later to John Wentworth, wherein he summarized the history and doctrines of the Church.²¹

Orson’s return to America in 1841 thrust him into a maelstrom of rumors and gossip in Nauvoo—the results of which led eventually to his own excommunication. While all the facts are not known, several are evident. It is clear that by 1841 Joseph Smith had begun to widen the circle of those who knew about and even practiced plural marriage. John C. Bennett, the first mayor of Nauvoo and Joseph Smith’s close associate, had apparently begun to use the rumors of its ^[100] practice for his own gratification. He managed to seduce several women in Nauvoo by telling them Joseph approved. There is even some evidence that his amorous adventures included Orson’s wife, Sarah.²²

Orson Pratt heard astonishing charges that it was even Joseph who had taken liberties with his wife. Unable to discover where truth lay, he grew increasingly despondent and wandered five miles south of Nauvoo where a search party eventually found him sitting on the banks of the Mississippi River. On 20 August 1842, after his co-workers had tried for several weeks to convince him to support Joseph Smith, he and his wife were excommunicated from the Church.²³

He spent the next five months seeking the truth regarding both Joseph Smith’s calling and the new doctrine of plural marriage. He came to accept both with such assurity that he spent the rest of his life in their defense. Orson soon came to support Joseph’s stand that Bennett was the charlatan, and proved his loyalty to Joseph when he refused to join Bennett in his anti-Mormon activities during the fall and winter of 1842 after Bennett had been excommunicated. Orson remained in Nauvoo during this time and, again, his study of mathematics and science helped him through a religious crisis.²⁴

During the two years prior to Joseph’s death in 1844, the responsibility and jurisdiction of the Twelve Apostles in the affairs of the Kingdom were gradually increased. They soon managed Church publishing, immigration, the government of Nauvoo, Church finances, and were at the same time, brought closer to the Prophet himself as they learned privately about the doctrines and ordinances which in ^[101] time were to be taught to the entire Church.²⁵ Throughout all of this, Orson, too, seemed to draw new strength from and insight into the doctrines of the faith he had embraced only fourteen years before.

After the martyrdom of the Smith brothers, Orson joined with the Quorum of the Twelve in asserting its right to preside over the Church. Throughout this period he also spent

. . . much of my leisure time in study, and made myself thoroughly acquainted with algebra, geometry, trigonometry, conic sections, differential and integral calculus, astronomy, and most of the physical sciences. These studies I pursued without the assistance of a teacher.²⁶

His interest in math and astronomy found an outlet in two “Prophetic Almanacs,” one published in 1845 and one in 1846.

Orson’s life during the Exodus is well known.²⁷ He moved with the Saints from Nauvoo in 1846, settled in Winter Quarters for the winter, and then traveled West with the Pioneer Company in 1847, keeping detailed notes of what he observed. He was the first Mormon of that company to set foot in the Salt Lake Valley, several days before Brigham Young entered it. He dedicated the land on July 23, one day before Brigham Young declared that it was “the place.” He preached the first sermon in the Valley (on Isaiah 52:7–8, “Zion in the Mountains”) and after the first death, preached the funeral sermon on 11 August 1847.²⁸ Using his surveying skills he located the base meridian of Salt Lake City. Brigham Young must have recognized that Orson was not meant to be a pioneer, for soon after the initial colony had been established in Salt Lake Valley, he sent him on another mission where his writing and speaking skills would be of greater benefit to the Mormon Kingdom. ^[102]

On 6 April 1848, Pratt was appointed to preside over the Church in Europe. He was in Liverpool by July 24, and when he assumed the Presidency of the British Mission, the population of the Church there was placed at about 18,000. With this assignment also came the responsibility of editing the LDS Millennial Star, a 16-page weekly Church paper begun by his brother Parley eight years before, and also the major task of managing the European office of the Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company.²⁹ In addition to carrying out these tasks, he managed to write and publish fifteen pamphlets in defense of Mormon doctrines—works oriented as much to investigators as to converts. It was from the sale of these works that he managed to support himself and his families, which had grown to five wives and ten children.³⁰

He left Liverpool after serving as mission president for twenty-nine months. The LDS Millennial Star summarized the accomplishments of his presidency: the paid circulation of the Millennial Star increased from 3,700 to 22,000, about 5,500 converts immigrated to the United States under his direction, and about 21,000 people had joined the Church.³¹ He returned to Salt Lake City in October 1851, and was soon assigned to teach at the newly established University of Deseret, although students were few, even when he offered to teach without tuition. He delivered a series of twelve lectures on astronomy that winter,³² also free of charge, although Pratt family sources tell of the Saints at the end of the series taking up a collection for him of money, animals, and food that amounted to about $5,000. He declined to accept it, suggesting that they give the items ^[103] to Brigham Young for use in the cause of territorial education. In time Brigham Young used this money to provide homes for two of Orson’s plural wives.³³

It was at a special missionary conference in August 1852 that Brigham Young asked Orson Pratt to publicly introduce plural marriage. While it is traditionally suggested that he gave the talk extemporaneously, evidence now available suggests that Church leaders had been preparing this announcement for several weeks. The talk is too carefully constructed to have been delivered without preparation.³⁴

One outcome of the conference was Orson Pratt’s call to go to Washington, D.C., to publish a periodical in defense of plural marriage. This work, The Seer, provides what is still the most detailed analysis of the doctrine in Mormon literature.³⁵

While on his way to Washington, D.C., Pratt stopped in Nauvoo and obtained from A. W. Babbitt a manuscript copy of Lucy Mack Smith’s History of Joseph Smith. During the summer of 1853, he went to England where he had the manuscript published. While it was later suppressed by Brigham Young because of errors, it was the first biography to appear in Mormon literature and is still an important source for early LDS history.³⁶

Pratt returned to the Nation’s capital in September 1853, and in May 1854, left for Salt Lake City. He later reported that The Seer had about 700 subscribers, few of whom lived in Washington. John Bernhisel, the Mormon territorial representative in Congress wrote Brigham Young several times asking that Pratt’s publication be ^[104] stopped as polygamy was too controversial to be openly discussed, but in spite of this opposition, he continued publishing on the topic.³⁷ Once back in Salt Lake Valley, Orson again returned to his interest in astronomy, and on 11 November 1854 announced to the world that he had discovered “The Law of Planetary Rotation.”³⁸

The last twenty-five years of his life continued to be busy. In 1856 he was again sent to preside over the European mission. During this assignment he produced another set of pamphlets.³⁹ He also met Nathaniel Hawthorne in Liverpool. Hawthorne was unimpressed. Of their December 1856 meeting Hawthorne wrote:

O[rson] P[ratt], the famous Mormonite, called on me a little while ago—a short, blackhaired, dark-complexioned man; a shrewd, intelligent but unrefined countenance, expressively unprepossessing; and uncouth gait and deportment; the aspect of a person in uncomfortable circumstances and decently behaved, but of a vulgar nature and destitute of early culture.

I think I should have taken him for a shoemaker, accustomed to reflect in a rude, strong, evil-disposed way on matters of this world and the next, as he sat on his bench.

Hawthorne was as narrow in considering Orson Pratt as he was in judging the idealism of his Transcendentalist friends.⁴⁰

Orson returned to Utah in January 1858. He served in the territorial legislature and completed additional missions in the years that followed. He helped establish the Cotton Mission in Southern Utah in 1861–62, the year his assessed valuation was placed at $2,575.⁴¹ In 1864 he was appointed to missions in Austria and Britain. While not successful as a missionary in Austria, he published, in May 1866 in England, his New and Easy Method of Solution of the Cubic and Biquadratic Equations.⁴² He returned to Utah in 1867. In 1869 he went to New York City to transcribe the ^[105] Book of Mormon into the Deseret Alphabet⁴³ and in 1870 was the Speaker of the House when the Utah Territorial legislature became the second U.S. territory to grant women the right to vote. In August of 1870 he participated in a debate with the Chaplain of the U.S. Senate, John Newman, in Salt Lake City on the topic “Does the Bible Sanction Polygamy?”⁴⁴

Throughout this period he held many public positions, including that of Representative for thirteen terms in the Territorial Legislature, of which he was Speaker of the House eight terms. His membership on the Committee on Education, Libraries, and School Lands allowed him to be involved in areas of great personal interest. He was also active in attempts to secure Statehood for Utah, although he died fifteen years before statehood finally came.⁴⁵ After 1870 he remained closer to home. Most of his sermons in the Journal of Discourses came from this period. In 1874 he was appointed Church Historian and Recorder, a position he held until his death in 1881.

After Brigham Young’s death in 1877 Pratt was assigned to help prepare new editions of the modern Mormon scriptures.⁴⁶ He provided much of the critical work for the 1876 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants,⁴⁷ for the 1879 edition of the Book of Mormon⁴⁸ and for the 1879 American edition of the Pearl of Great Price.⁴⁹ He also made a trip East in 1878 with Joseph F. Smith to collect material on the history of the Church.⁵⁰

In 1879, he published his Key to the Universe at Liverpool, but by this time his health was beginning to fail. In the end it was diabetes that conquered his body. He preached his last public ^[106] discourse on 18 September 1881⁵¹ and he died on October 3rd in Salt Lake City. On his deathbed he told Joseph F. Smith to place these words on his tombstone:

My body sleeps but a moment; 
but my testimony lives and 
shall endure forever.⁵²

These were the contours of Orson’s fruitful life.

Orson Pratt as Scientist

Orson Pratt’s early training in surveying, mathematics and bookkeeping must have reinforced his inclination for exactness and precision. Mormons have traditionally claimed that it is as a mathematician and astronomer that he was most noted in non-Mormon circles. Levi Edgar Young said Orson Pratt’s works were used as textbooks in England, Germany and France, and others have repeated the claim.⁵³ It has been made primarily with regard to his major published mathematical work, New and Easy Method of Solution of the Cubic and Biquadratic Equations (London and Liverpool, 1866). He also published and wrote other mathematical works. He contributed several articles to mathematical publications,⁵⁴ and left unpublished or incomplete manuscripts on differential calculus and algebra.⁵⁵ In all of these works he demonstrated better than average skills in higher math, but in no way can he be considered a great mathematician. As one recent student has noted, while Pratt may have thought his work was original, he “was not a creative mathematician of sufficient ability to deserve acclaim as one of the outstanding men in the history of mathematics. . . .”⁵⁶ The comments of Richard Anthony ^[107] Proctor, a non-Mormon scientist who visited Salt Lake City in the 1870s, that Orson Pratt was one of the four real mathematicians in the world, must be seen as good public relations, not an accurate judgment of Pratt’s mathematical standing.⁵⁷ Perhaps his real contribution, as Hogan suggests, was his role as science teacher and educator on the Mormon frontier. Given the disadvantages under which he worked, his work was still impressive.

It was his interest in mathematics that led him to study astronomy. Orson Pratt found in math and astronomy the same evidence of God’s existence and designs as Benjamin Silliman found in his study of geology and chemistry, the principles of science providing “a transcript of the Divine Character.” Whether Pratt was aware of it or not, his own approach to nature was common among American thinkers by the 1820s. Identified as Baconianism, it was a thorough-going empiricism that had been borrowed from the Scottish Realists who believed that God spoke to man through scripture and nature. It was at its heart an attempt by orthodox Protestants to find a satisfactory answer to the challenges of the Enlightenment.⁵⁸

Like so many of his contemporaries, Orson Pratt was a natural theologian whose religious views were held to be as empirical as his scientific observations. As Herbert Hovenkamp suggests, these conservative Protestants maintained a strong commitment to two broad principles: that God created nature and that the evidence of his creativity is obvious everywhere, and that God provided equally reliable information about Himself in the Bible.⁵⁹ While such beliefs were seriously challenged during the second half of the nineteenth ^[108] century, it is clear that Orson Pratt was nurtured on these assumptions during the formative years he studied his math, science and religion. Of course, in early Mormonism both Joseph Smith’s thought and the revelations were as intensely theological as the scientific world view described above.

Evidence of Pratt’s interest in “natural theology” can be seen as early as 1836 when he was studying algebra and astronomy between missions for the Church. The earliest direct reference is in an address he gave to the Nauvoo Lyceum on 19 November 1842. His discussion centered on the question, “Is there sufficient evidence in the works of Nature to prove the existence of a Supreme Being?”⁶⁰ The contents of his later works suggest he argued strongly in the affirmative.⁶¹

Throughout his life, Pratt combined science with his theology; each gave support and assurance to the other. It is not a coincidence that he turned more deeply to mathematics and astronomy during the great crises and that the “finality” of empirical evidence provided a shelter from the storms of his life.⁶²

After the founding of Nauvoo, he was appointed Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at the university.⁶³ He printed his first piece on astronomy in the Times and Seasons in 1843 and his observations of the heavens continued throughout the rest of his life.⁶⁴ His Prophetic Almanac for 1845 and 1846⁶⁵ (he even thought of preparing the Almanacs for the British Isles),⁶⁶ provided outlets for his interest in astronomy,⁶⁷ as did his series of twelve lectures of 1851–52 in the Salt Lake Valley. These lectures were published in ^[109] the Deseret News in 1854.⁶⁸ An expanded version of them was delivered again in Salt Lake City, in January and February 1871. They provided the background for what many consider to be his principal scientific work, The Key to the Universe.⁶⁹ It was in these published lectures that Pratt most clearly revealed his natural theology. Woven through them is his central belief that “The study of science is the study of something eternal. If we study astronomy, we study the works of God.”⁷⁰

Pratt’s writings were the most complete attempt in early Mormonism to provide a vast teleological argument for God’s existence. He concluded Lecture II by proclaiming “Before its potent energies the complex machinery of nature discloses its beautiful harmonies, and proclaims with inspiring tones, the Divinity of its Author.”⁷¹ At the conclusion of Lecture IV he challenged his audience to consider “Who can but acknowledge the footsteps of Divinity in every part and in the whole?”⁷² At the end of another lecture on “Gravitation and Centrifugal forces” he concluded:

Nothing is calculated to inspire the mind of man with a more profound reverence for the Great Author of nature than the contemplation of his marvelous works. For the exact mathematical adjustments of the various forces of nature—the consummate wisdom and skill exhibited in every department of the universe, accessible to finite minds—the omnipotent power and grandeur displayed in the construction of the magnificent machinery of creation—proclaim the majesty and glory of Him who formed and governs the mighty fabric.⁷³

In all of this Orson Pratt was in tune with the major strains of thought in early nineteenth-century science. The concept of a mechanistic, clock-work universe was the product of the Enlightenment and its obsession with order and machines. Like most of the ^[110] intellectuals of the American Revolutionary generation, Pratt viewed the universe in mechanistic terms. Hence, inductive methods appeared to be the best way to understand the parts. There is no doubt that the science he learned in the 1830s was heavily mechanistic, and this emphasis is visible throughout his mathematical and stellar work.

But at the same time, the rise of Romanticism, in its own search for higher order, introduced an organic dimension to the argument. The organic model allowed for growth and change. Where a mechanistic view led to Deism (which for many was atheism because it removed God from direct involvement with His creations), it also presented a rather static view of the universe. As a recent study suggests, the mechanistic view provided its adherents with an internal cause-effect model where geologic change, motion, etc., could be explained as part of the Order of Nature. But the organic view, by locating God in the natural world, placed God directly in nature and therefore tended toward a cosmic pantheism.⁷⁴ Orson Pratt managed to use both of these perspectives in his writings. Most of his work supported the mechanistic view, but his growing concern for discovering the absolute laws of nature led him to seek ultimate causes and universal laws which for him were metaphysical.

It seems apparent that Pratt’s explanatory paradigm was pre-Darwinian—he died before confronting an evolutionary naturalism which seriously challenged the mechanistic model and in time completely secularized the organic view. Although The Origin of Species was published in 1859, it did not have an influence in America until the 1880s; Pratt died in 1881. The fact that Pratt’s scientific work was ^[111] centered in the physical sciences also helps explain his apparent unawareness of the revolutionary changes then taking place in biology.⁷⁵

Most of Orson Pratt’s scientific theorizing centered on two main problems. The first was his search for the law which governed celestial dynamics. In the autumn of 1845, in his Prophetic Almanac, he first projected his hypothesis of universal law. In it he advanced a theory of “Intelligent Self-moving Matter.” This theory found its fullest expression in his 1849 Absurdities of Immaterialism, in his 1851 The Great First Cause and shortly thereafter in The Holy Spirit.⁷⁶ Brigham Young’s denouncement of the latter in 1860 seems to have led Pratt to abandon his search for First Causes alone, and instead to seek for the underlying cause of all celestial laws.

This second problem found its “solution” in Pratt’s work in astronomy. On 11 November 1854 he proclaimed that he had discovered the “Law of Planetary Rotation.”⁷⁷ It was based on the relationship between the mass and diameter or the density of the period of a planet’s rotation. In his words, “the periods of planetary rotations upon their axis vary as the square of the cube roots of their (mean) densities.” This theory has been abandoned by modern astronomy, but did describe rather accurately the movements of major planets known in his day.⁷⁸ He was so committed to accuracy that he, on occasion, became unrealistic. While his pioneer recordings from the barometer and thermometer are of great importance to historians, when he recorded the density of planets he employed five or more place numbers. On one occasion he obtained the weight of the earth in pounds and expressed it to twenty-six places.^{79 [112]}

Orson Pratt did use a telescope,⁸⁰ but his emphasis was more on theory than experimentation. A recent study has suggested the major flaws of his principal scientific work, the Key to the Universe: he does not mention energy; he misunderstands centrifugal force; he does not grasp the fundamental principles of dynamics; his theory of cosmic evolution fails to consider the conservation of energy principle; he informs the reader that he will avoid calculus, but in doing so he allows errors; his arguments for “ether” as part of gravitating matter ignored Newton; and finally, his approach in general shows he had not consulted the best thinking of his time on these questions. For example, he demonstrates no awareness of Maxwell’s electromagnetic field theory (1865) which suggests that he was not theoretically current.⁸¹ Thus, he must be considered an amateur scientist, but one whose work should be acknowledged as impressive given his lack of formal education.

Of course, Pratt’s science must be viewed in the context of Mormon theology, which was strongly materialistic and intensely teleological. God was material, inside space and time, as were His creations. Creation was organization and the law that governed the universe was eternal, not superceded by men or God.⁸² Man and God and nature were moving in the same direction—forward to a bright millennial day. In all of these areas he owed a heavy debt to Joseph Smith and his own brother Parley. The fact that he outlived his brother by about twenty-five years and that Joseph Smith left only fragments of his own teaching, is likely the reason we tend to remember Orson more as the theologian of early Mormonism. Actually, it seems ^[113] that Orson acquired his mechanical view of the universe from Joseph Smith and his organic view from his brother Parley, and that both positions were reinforced by the scientific and religious thought of his day.

Orson Pratt as Pamphleteer

Orson Pratt’s greatest impact upon Mormonism came through his clearly and precisely written theological studies. Within each work he moved carefully from one point to another, gradually developing his position with the same exactness he would have used in solving a mathematical equation. More than anything else, his concern for definitiveness gave his works a finality early Mormons found reassuring in an unstable world, and his ability to simplify, to reduce things to their lowest common denominator was especially appreciated by elders defending the faith in mission fields all over the world.

All of Orson Pratt’s religious pamphlets grew out of a missionary context. His first work, An Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions, was published in Edinburgh, Scotland as part of his efforts to introduce Mormonism in that country in 1840. Later, while serving as mission president in England, he issued two series of tracts. From 1848 to 1851 he produced fifteen tracts (under seven titles, including a reprinting of his 1840 work), and in 1857–58 he published eight additional pamphlets. Little new Mormon doctrine surfaced in these works. Their importance lies in the extended arguments and “proofs” for the central tenets of Mormon theology. Mormon thought reduced to its essentials, forms the core of Orson ^[114] Pratt’s religious pamphlets.

Orson Pratt more or less outlined these essentials in his first pamphlet and then expanded them in his later essays. An Interesting Account . . . can be divided into several parts. He began with a biographical sketch of Joseph Smith, emphasizing his visions and his divine calling growing out of these experiences. Next he surveyed the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, discussing its inspired translation and the divinely inspired testimony of its witnesses as additional proof of both Joseph Smith’s claims and of the fact of modern revelation. Next he told of the institutional embodiment of these things in the Church Joseph Smith organized in April 1830. Finally, he ended his sixteen-page pamphlet with a “sketch of the faith and doctrine of this Church.” This sketch included fifteen articles of belief that outlined the basic doctrines of Mormonism: the Godhead, the Fall of Adam, the Atonement of Jesus Christ, the purpose of mortality and evil, the first principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (faith, repentance, baptism by immersion for the remission of sins, and the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost), that Mormonism is patterned after the New Testament church, that Christianity had apostatized from the true order, authority, and pattern originally established by Jesus, that the honest in heart will receive the true gospel when it is presented to them by proper messengers, that revelation continues, that the Church is re-established to prepare mankind for the second coming of the Lord, that the righteous will be gathered out of the world to assist in building a latter-day Zion, that ancient prophecies will be fulfilled through ^[115] this latter-day work, and that terrible judgments await all those who fail to repent.

His later pamphlets expand on these notions by providing lengthy discussions and scriptural (mainly Biblical) rationalizations for their authenticity. Divine Authority, or Was Joseph Smith Sent of God? (1848) was an extended discussion of the Mormon position that modern revelation was absolutely necessary for any claim to be a disciple of Christ. The story of Joseph Smith, Pratt argued, was thoroughly consistent, with the Bible which required heavenly messengers to open a dispensation of the gospel and to provide for legal administrators authorized to act for God pertaining to the salvation of mankind.⁸³

Within one month after he finished Divine Authority, Orson began to issue The Kingdom of God. This series gave extended argument for the nature, purpose and character of God’s kingdom on earth. While Joseph Smith and Parley P. Pratt had earlier addressed this subject,⁸⁴ Orson’s lengthy (96 pages) essay was the most complete discussion of “theocracy” in early Mormon literature. His essay was an extensive examination of the Church or Kingdom, its establishment, its officers, its laws and the requirements for admission to it, and the privileges and blessings of its citizens both now and in the future.⁸⁵

After issuing two replies to anti-Mormon attacks,⁸⁶ in which he repeated many of his earlier arguments, he then wrote an essay on the New Jerusalem of the last days⁸⁷ and a lengthy defense of the Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon.^{88 [116]}

In these works Orson Pratt spelled out the implications of the ideas he had surveyed in his 1840 pamphlet. With logic and Biblical proof-texts, he challenged his readers by asserting throughout that they had only two alternatives: either Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon were divinely inspired, or they were frauds. The evidence Pratt marshaled suggested that only the first alternative was possible for the honest seeker.⁸⁹ This simplifying of complex questions and issues to an either/or answer had obvious benefits for missionary work, and go a long way to explain the popularity of Pratt’s pamphlets.

Orson’s second series of pamphlets (1857–58) continued the same approach, but with more precise topics. Beginning in August 1856, he issued, at two-to-four week intervals, tracts on faith, repentance, baptism, the Holy Spirit, spiritual gifts, miracles, apostasy, and the Latter-Day Kingdom. Each had been listed as an item of faith and doctrine in his 1840 pamphlet and several had previously appeared in the second volume of The Seer.⁹⁰

By the time Orson finished his second set of pamphlets, there were few, if any, doctrines left to write about. It was in his pamphlets that the key Mormon doctrines of the gathering, premortal existence, plural marriage, eternal progression, the eternal nature of matter, the first principles of the Gospel, and several central millennial beliefs were articulated and given extended analysis.⁹¹ The two series of pamphlets published by 1857 demonstrate that he was one of the first systematizers of Mormon thought. While these pamphlets do not constitute a Summa Theologia, they do go further in ^[117] that direction than any other Mormon writer’s work in the nineteenth century. It has been this comprehensiveness that led both his contemporaries and later scholars to judge him as the intellectual of the early Church.⁹²

There is little question that Orson Pratt’s influence has been tremendous within Mormondom. William Clayton expressed what almost all Mormons have felt about him:

If a sound doctrine coupled with revelation would convince a man of the error of . . . a doctrine, one discourse, from Brother Pratt would settle the question. . . .⁹³

The continued popularity of Pratt’s writings also remind us of his stature among Mormons. What is Orson’s true place within the development of Mormon thought? In almost every area he was taught the substance by Joseph Smith, often through the intermediacy of his brother Parley. This suggests that Orson was more of a popularizer and systematizer than an innovator. Although there are great difficulties in tracing the sources of a person’s thought, it is readily apparent that Orson drew heavily upon Joseph Smith and Parley for the germ ideas from which his ideas and pamphlets grew.⁹⁴ As more research is done it becomes increasingly clear that the real mind of the early Mormon movement was Joseph Smith. Space considerations preclude a detailed discussion here, but several specific examples will illustrate this premise.⁹⁵ Before April 1839 Joseph Smith had depended upon public spokesmen to articulate many of his ideas. But Oliver Cowdery and Sidney Rigdon became casualties of the Missouri persecutions. After Joseph’s escape to Illinois he began acting as his own spokesman. His trip to the nation’s capital ^[118] in 1839–40 provided the first real opportunities for him to be his own voice. As can be clearly shown in the early Mormon pamphlet literature, new Mormon doctrines first surfaced in the written works of those elders who heard Joseph preach during his journey to and from Washington, D.C. As Peter Crawley claims, Parley Pratt was first taught the doctrine of eternal marriage during this time; Orson Pratt soon thereafter journeyed to Scotland where he published his Interesting Accounts of Several Remarkable Visions (1840) of Joseph Smith’s First Vision—suggesting that Joseph first taught this event publicly in 1839–40; Samuel Bennett published in 1840 A Few Remarks by Way of Reply to an Anonymous Scribbler which affirms the notion of a corporeal, anthropomorphic God, among other new doctrines; and Benjamin Winchester published his Examination of a Lecture Delivered by the Reverend H. Perkins, which spoke of the doctrine of the pre-existence of spirits. That same year Joseph Smith first taught the doctrine of vicarious work for the dead. Little wonder that in April 1842, Joseph Smith accused several of his followers (including Orson and Parley Pratt) of publishing his ideas as their own.⁹⁶

In addition to learning from Joseph Smith, Orson Pratt benefitted greatly from the writings of his brother Parley. Consider these examples. Orson’s The Absurdity of Immaterialism (1849) is considered his most important philosophical treatise. In it he demonstrates the fallacies of an ex-nihilo creation, and neatly dismantles the immaterial matter argument by demonstrating that this position is really one of atheism—i.e., belief in nothing, which is what immaterial matter is. But behind Orson’s work stand two important ^[119] revelatory insights from Joseph Smith (D&C 93:29 and 131:7–8) which laid the foundation for such a position. In addition, Parley had published in 1840 The Millennium and other Poems to which he attached a forty-four page essay he had written while in a Missouri jail in 1839: “A Treatise on the Regeneration and Eternal Duration of Matter.”⁹⁷ In 1844, Parley published two additional essays which expanded on his 1838 essay, and Orson had access to all of his brother’s works.

There were other works by Parley that foreshadowed Orson’s own writings. Parley’s Voice of Warning (1837) provided such detailed arguments for the Book of Mormon, the basic principles of the gospel, including the gathering and the Kingdom of God, that it is hard to ignore their potential influence on Orson. In addition, Parley’s essays on such topics as “Intelligence and Affection,” and “Celestial Family Organization,” and his other pamphlets, which were replies to anti-Mormon writers as well as defenses of major Mormon doctrines, provided much upon which Orson likely drew. Parley’s preference for “dialogue” in his tracts also provided Orson with a writing technique in defending Mormonism. Even Orson’s detailed defenses of plural marriage were foreshadowed by Parley’s San Francisco broadside published six weeks before Orson publicly announced the practice.⁹⁸

Orson clearly was aware of his brother’s works. He wrote his wife in January, 1840, about the publication of The Millennium, and specifically noted the material on the eternal duration of matter.⁹⁹ A year later he began selling Parley’s books out of his own home in ^[120] Nauvoo and advertising them in Church periodicals.¹⁰⁰ The best evidence of Orson’s relationship to Parley comes from a letter written in 1853:

There are no writings in the church with the exception of the revelations, which I esteem more highly than yours; and I think were you to give your time more to writing and publishing it would not only be a blessing to millions, but would render great assistance to you in a temporal point of view. . . . Oh, my dear brother, in some way, burst these shackles and send forth your theological Works by thousands among all languages and nations till the whole earth shall be enlightened with the light therof. Soon old age will be upon us, and our span of life ended for this mortal career! Oh, improve it, for God has Given you abilities, in some respects, far greater than the most of other men. All nations might be made to rejoice by your exertions. Must abilities like yours slumber, because poverty seems to compel you to hard toil? O may God our Heavenly Father look with compassion upon his servant Parley, and set him free, that his voice may be heard in high places, and the nations be made glad because of him & his writings.¹⁰¹

This is not to say that Orson merely reproduced his brother’s work. It is clear that Orson labored diligently over his writing. In another letter to his brother he shared his frustrations:

Writing always was tedious to me, but seeing the good that may be accomplished, I have whipped my mind to it, till I am nearly bald-headed, and grey-headed, through constant application. I almost envy the hours that steal away, I find myself so fast hastening to old age. A few short years, if we live, will find us among the ranks of the old men of the earth; and how can I bear to have it so without doing more in this great cause? I wish to accomplish something ere I die, that shall not only be esteemed great by good and holy men, but shall be considered great in the sight of God. What have we yet done, and to what blessings have we yet attained? when compared with many of the ancient men of God. It seems to me that we are as nothing, and that our faith is hardly worthy to be called faith. Oh, that we could rend the veil and obtain power with the heavens, and be taught of God as the brother of Jared was.¹⁰²

In most of his work, however, Orson was an “elaborator,” a systematizer, and popularizer of Mormon thought, not an innovator nor an originator.¹⁰³ He was among the most important of the approximately ^[121] eighty pamphleteers in early Mormonism.

It was Edward W. Tullidge who referred to Orson as the “Paul of Mormonism.”¹⁰⁴ There is no question about Orson’s key role in early missionary work—as a teacher, preacher, and defender of the faith he had few peers.¹⁰⁵ He was at his best in developing the ideas of others and expanding them into fully elaborated statements. Without question, all religious movements in their infancy need such disciples.¹⁰⁶ In this sense Orson and Paul have much in common.

For both Paul and Orson Pratt there was a road to Damascus; for both it included agonizing personal decisions that did not disappear with their conversions. As far as we know, the journey for Orson did not entail an open vision, although he spoke of his conversion several times during his life as fervently as did Paul.

Both Orson Pratt and Paul were much traveled missionaries, both had conflicts with their co-workers, and both sought and obtained the knowledge of the wider world in which their missionary work was undertaken. For both, integrity remained central to their lives and work. Finally, both left an important heritage of testimony as well as lengthy analysis of what that testimony meant to them. For both the message of the Gospel of Christ was an invitation to thought and knowledgeable discipleship. ^[122]