Merrill, who urged a unique vision of reality that shaped a Mormon eschatology. He shows how authorities eventually retreated from the perception of reality as "true" and adopted a scientifically less secure position in order to protect their theology, an eventuality which ultimately resulted in a reactionary response to science within Mormonism.

Parley P. Pratt, born April 12, 1807, was one of the important early leaders of the LDS church. His influence is felt not only through his work as one of the first apostles called in this dispensation, but also through his missionary work, writing, poems, and hymns. After being baptized around September 1, 1830 by Oliver Cowdery, he was soon called on a mission by the prophet Joseph Smith. This was the first of many such missions that Pratt served. He was a member of Zion’s Camp and served as a missionary in Canada, the southern United States, and the United Kingdom. This book gives his history in his own words. The testimonies Pratt shares of the Gospel, particularly of the Book of Mormon, are inspiring. We hope this book and the amazing experiences of Parley P. Pratt’s life will serve to strengthen the testimonies of all who read it.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt" (One of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Embracing His Life, Ministry, and Travels) by Parley P. Pratt. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

The Village Enlightenment in America focuses on three nineteenth-century spiritual activists who epitomized the marriage of science and religion fostered in antebellum, pre-Darwinian America by the American Enlightenment. A theologian, writer, and apologist for the nascent Mormon movement, as well as an amateur scientist, Orson Pratt wrote Key to the Universe, or a New Theory of Its Mechanism, to establish a scientific base for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Robert Hare, an inventor and ardent convert to spiritualism, used his scientific expertise to lend credence to the spiritualist movement. Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, generally considered the initiator of the American mind-cure movement, developed an overtly religious concept of science and used it to justify his system of theology. Pratt, Hare, and Quimby all employed a potent combination of popular science and Baconianism to legitimate their new religious ideas. Using the same terms--matter, ether, magnetic force--to account for the behavior of particles, planetary rotation, and the influence of the Holy Ghost, these agents of the Enlightenment constructed complex systems intended to demonstrate a fundamental harmony between the physical and the metaphysical. Through the lives and work of these three influential men, The Village Enlightenment in America opens a window to a time when science and religion, instead of seeming fundamentally at odds with each other, appeared entirely reconcilable.