Young lips that smiled on their mothers till he gin 'em that that
changed the smiles to curses?

"Would a delegation of wimmen keep such a man in the meetin' house if he
paved the hull floor with fine gold? No, you know they wouldn't. Let a
jury of mothers set on such a man, and see if he could get up agin very
easy.

"They are the ones who have suffered by him, who have agonized, who went
down into deeper than the Valley of Death led by his hand. They went
down into that depth where they lose their boy. Lose him eternally.

"Death, jest death, would give 'em a chance to meet their child again.
But what hope does a mother have when down in the darkness that has
no mornin', her boy tears his hand from her weak grasp and plunges
downward?

"How does such a mother feel as she sets there in a still meetin' house,
and the man who has done all this passes her the emblems of a deathless
love, a divine purity?"

Josiah sat demute and, didn't say nuthin', and I went on, for I wuz very
roze up in my mind, and by the side of myself with emotions.

And sez I, "Take the case of Simeon Lathers. Why wuz it that Sister
Irene Filkins wuz turned out of the meetin' house and the man who wuz
the first cause of her goin' astray kep in--the handsome,
smooth-faced hypocrite?--it wuz because he wuz rich as a Jew, and jest
plastered over the consciences of them that tried him with his fine
speeches and his money."