The Mormon Prophet, Lily Dougall [young adult books to read TXT] 📗

she stood seeking a reply the natural power that he had of working upon the feelings of others, vulgarly called magnetism, so far worked in connection with his words that tears came to her eyes.

"I don't often think about my old life," she said with brief pathos.

Smith was looking at the ground, as a huge, shy boy might stand when anxious to express sympathy of which he was somewhat ashamed. "I know it must be a sort of abiding trial to you." After a moment he added, "I wouldn't like to make it worse by having you think that I was goin' to preach any strange doctrine. I'd sometimes give a good deal if the Lord would raise me up a friend that I could speak to concerning the lights that come to me that I know that it wouldn't do to speak of in the public congregations, because of their upsetting nature, and likewise because I doubt concerning their meaning. And of this matter there was no thought in my mind to speak in public, for it is for the future to declare whether it be of the darkness or of the light; but to you I spoke, almost unwittingly, and perhaps in disobedience to the dictates of wisdom."

He looked at her wistfully.

Susannah leaned her arm upon the topmost log of the snake fence and looked down the slope. His insight into her own trials caused her to sympathise with him in spite of his absurdity. She made an honest effort to assist him to self-analysis. She said, "A great many things come into our minds at times, Mr. Smith, that seem important, but, as you say, if we do not speak about them, afterwards we see that they are silly. Of course with you, if you think some of your thoughts are revelations, it must make you often fancy that the others may be very important too, but it does not follow that they are, and, as you say, time will weed them out if you are trying to do right." She wondered if he would resent her _ifs_. She stood looking down the bank in the short silence that followed, feeling somewhat timorous. The steep ground was covered with the feathery sprays of asters, seen through a velvety host of gray teasles which grew to greater height. Through the teasles the white and purple flowers showed as colours reflected in rippled water--rich, soft, vague in outline. At one side, by an old stump, there was a splendid feather, yellow and green, of fading golden rod; yellow butterflies, that looked as if they had dyed their wings in the light reflected from this flower, repeated its gold in glint and gleam over all the gray hillside, shot with the white and the blue. At the foot of the bank lay the flat valley, and from this vantage ground the river could be seen. The soft musical chat of its waters ascended to her ears, and among the huge bronze-leafed nut-trees, whose shelter she had just left, the woodpeckers were tapping and whistling to one another.

At length Smith sighed deeply, but without affectation. "Yes, I reckon that's a good deal how it is. It ain't easy, Mrs. Halsey--I hope in your thoughts when judgin' of me you'll always remember that it ain't easy to be a prophet."

When he had gone, Susannah found herself laughing, but for Halsey's sake the laughter was akin to tears.


CHAPTER III.

Ohio was being quickly settled. Within a few miles of Kirtland, Cleveland and Paynesville were rising on the lake shore, and to the south there were numerous villages; but the society of the Saints at Kirtland was especially prosperous, and so sudden had been the increase of its numbers and its wealth that the wonder of the neighbouring settlers gave birth to envy, and envy intensified their religious hatred. Twice before Smith had left Fayette he had been arrested and brought before a magistrate, accused of committing crimes of which the courts were unable to convict him. Now the same spirit gave rise to the same accusations against his followers. About this time webs of cloth were taken from a woollen mill near Paynesville, and several horses were also stolen. The Mormons, whether guilty or not, were accused by common consent of the orthodox and irreligious part of the community. Hatred of the adherents of the new sect began to rise in all the neighbouring country, as a ripple rises on the sea when the wind begins to blow; the growing wave broke here and there in little ebullitions of wrath, and still gained strength until it bid fair to surge high.

About Christmas time there were a number of cases of illness in Kirtland. Joseph Smith healed one woman, who appeared to be dying, by merely taking her by the hand, after praying, and commanding her to get up. After that he went about with great confidence to others who were stricken, and in many cases health seemed to return with remarkable celerity. It is hard to understand why the report of this, going abroad with such addition as gossip gives, should have greatly added to the rage of the members of other religious sects. Perhaps they supposed that the prophet arrogated to himself powers that were even more than apostolic. They threatened violence to Kirtland on the prophet's account, so that before the new year he took Emma and the child and established himself with them in an obscure place called Hiram, some twenty miles to the south. Sydney Rigdon, who by this time was, under the prophet, the chief leader of the Saints, went also to Hiram to be beside him. Smith was toiling night and day to produce a new version of the Hebrew Scriptures, believing that he was taught by inspiration to correct errors in them. Rigdon was scribe and reviser. These two being absent from Kirtland, responsibility and work without limit rested again with Angel Halsey.

With unsatisfied affections and thoughts wholly perplexed, Susannah beheld the days of the new year lengthening. Then she fell into the weakness, to which humanity is prone, of hoping eagerly for some external circumstance that should lighten the inner darkness. A bit of stray news one day came to her with the shock of an apparent fulfilment of her vague expectation. Finney was passing through that part of the country preaching. Of all human beings she had ever met, this remarkable evangelist most impressed her as a man who had intimate dealing, awful, yet friendly, with an unseen power. She had no sooner heard that he was within reach than her mind leaped to the determination to hear him preach and speak with him again. She would lay her difficulties before him; she would hear from him more intelligence concerning the home which she had left than a thousand letters could convey.

It was March now. The winter's snow was gone. Finney, as it chanced, was to come as near to Kirtland as the village of Hiram. Susannah spoke to her husband.

"Did you hear that Mr. Finney was going to preach at Hiram?"

She stood turning from the white spread table in the centre of the room. The morning light was shining on the satin surface of the planed maple wood with which walls and ceiling were lined. Halsey was putting on his boots to go out to his day's round of business and pastoral work. He knew just as well as if she had explained it to him that a great deal lay behind what she said. He fell to wondering at once what she could want. Was it to send a message to the old home by the man whose very name must recall all its memories?

"I want to go and hear him preach," Susannah went on.

Halsey was disturbed. "Thou canst not really have such a desire," he said severely.

"Why not? A great deal that he preaches is just the same as what you preach, Angel."

He saw that she was in a turbulent mood, and that grieved him; but as for her request, he could not believe it to be serious.

"Thou art speaking idle words," he said with a sigh, and he rose to go out.

"You have not answered me. Why shouldn't I hear him when you agree that much that he says is true?"

"He is in the camp of those whom Satan has stirred up to do us injury. That which thou callest truth in his mouth is but the form of godliness, for it is clear that if God be with those who fight against us he cannot be with us."

Something in the expression of her face brought him now a more distinct feeling of alarm. His nature was singularly direct. He had scarcely finished his meditative argument ere he sought to clinch its purport, and, stepping near, he laid his hand gently upon her shoulder.

"Dost thou doubt, Susannah, that God is with us?"

The crimson colour mounted from her cheeks and spread over her white brow. It was as if Angel had asked what he never had asked, whether she loved him or not, whether all her thoughts and feelings were loyal. She knew that for him there was no line of separation between life and love, and love and religion. She was careful for him always, as a mother is for a delicate child, as a sick nurse is for a patient. She could not have endured to give him the pain of hearing her denial, even if such denial would have expressed her attitude truly.

"Indeed, Angel, I--I know that you--" she faltered.

The trouble in his face was growing. "Has not _God_ made the signs of his presence clear to us, and even visible before our eyes? If thou shouldst deny the outward signs, is it not by his grace that we live? Susannah, dost thou think that it is in me by nature to bear with the infirmities and murmurings of our people as I bear with them daily--babes as they are, learning, but not yet having learned, to live at peace with one another? Or dost thou think that it is in me to forgive daily the outrageous acts and words of our enemies, trying as they do to injure our innocent brothers, or even our prophet himself? Yet, Susannah" (his voice was stirred with emotion), "I would bear witness to thee that every day, as I pray, the anger is taken out of my heart, and I can deal with these very men in the spirit of love."

Standing erect before him, confused and distressed, she made another effort to soothe, even taking his hand from her shoulder and trying to caress it between her own, but so tense was the question in his mind that his fingers were limp and unresponsive to her touch.

"I know all that you would say, Angel; I know that you are good; I know that our people, although they have many faults, are trying to do right, and I believe that the people in other sects around us are far more wicked, but--Mr. Finney is not like that."

"Dear heart, thou knowest well that there is no goodness but that which comes from above, and although this Mr. Finney may have a show of goodness, as thou or I might have in his place, yet what avail can his preaching be if God be not with him? So what show of goodness he has only aideth the devil; for how can it be possible, when two armies are encamped one against another, that God can fight upon both sides? Is Christ divided?"

A loud knock came to