reported about him are, as far as I can make out, not true. He doesn't
teach that it's unnecessary to obey the ten commandments, or beat his
wife, nor is he drunken. He's got the sense to see that all that sort of
thing wouldn't make a big man of him. It's merely a revised form of
Christianity, with a few silly additions, that he claims to be the
prophet of."

Mrs. Croom began to weep bitterly.

The elder Croom asked a pertinent question. "Why do you wilfully
distress your mother, Ephraim?"

"Because, sir, I love my mother too well to sit silent and let her
think that injustice can glorify God."

It was a family jar.

Finney was a man of about forty years of age; his eyes under
over-reaching brows were bright and penetrating; his face was shaven,
but his mouth had an expression of peculiar strength and gentleness. He
looked keenly at the son of the house, who was held to be irreligious.
And then he looked upon Susannah, whose beauty and frivolity had not
escaped his keen observation. He lived always in the consciousness of an
invisible presence; when he felt the arms of Heaven around him, wooing
him to prayer, he dared not disobey.

He arose now, setting his chair back against the wall with preoccupied
precision. "The spirit of prayer is upon me," he said; and in a moment
he added, "Let us pray."