until the next Sabbath to think it over, promising on my life to say not
one word to any person. I never let him see me alone again, you may be
sure, and at last when other awful tales were told about him here, of
wickedness and his drunkenness--he told in the pulpit that he had been
drunk, and that he did it to keep them from worshipping him as a God--I
saw he was a bad, common man, and I told my people everything, and soon
my father was denounced for an apostate. Now, sir, what do you say?"

When she finished he was silent for a time. Then he spoke, very gently,
but with undaunted firmness.

"Prudence, dearest, I have told you that this doctrine is new to me. I
do not yet know its justification. But that I shall see it to be
sanctified after they have taught me, this I know as certainly as I know
that Joseph Smith dug up the golden plates of Mormon and Moroni on the
hill of Cumorah when the angel of the Lord moved him. It will be
sanctified for those who choose it, I mean. You know I could never
choose it for myself. But as for others, I must not question. I know
only too well that eternal salvation for me depends upon my accepting
manfully and unquestioningly the authority of the temple priesthood."

"But I know Joseph was not a good man--and they tell such absurd stories
about the miracles the Elders pretend to work."

"I believe with all my heart Joseph was good; but even if not--we have
never pretended that he was anything more than a prophet of God. And was
not Moses a murderer when God called him to be a prophet? And as for
miracles, all religions have them--why not ours? Your people were
Methodists before Joseph baptised them. Didn't Wesley work miracles?
Didn't a cloud temper the sun in answer to his prayer? Wasn't his horse