The Mormon Prophet | Page 4

tone. "If the dirt beneath our feet were to
begin using profane language, I don't suppose it would be beneath our
dignity to put a stop to it."
"It is the Inquisition that my mother wishes to reinstate," said Ephraim.

The master of the house again spoke with the _naïveté_ of
unquestioning bias. "No, Ephraim; for your mother would be the last to
interfere with any for doing righteousness or believing the truth."
Mrs. Croom's slender head trembled and her eyes showed signs of tears
at her son's opposition. "If God-fearing people cannot prevent the most
horrible iniquities from being practised in their own town, the laws are
in a poor condition."
"You have made no candid inquiry concerning Smith, mother; your
judgment of him, whether true or false, is based on angry sentiment and
wilful ignorance."
The preacher sighed. "This Smith is deceiving the people."
"His book," said Ephraim, "is a history of the North American Indians
from the time of the flood until some epoch prior to Columbus. It
would be as difficult to prove that it was not true as to prove that Smith
is not honest in his delusion. We can only fall back upon what Butler
would call 'a strong presumption.'"
Mrs. Croom, consciously or not, made a little sharp rap on the table,
and there was a movement of suppressed misery like a quiver in her
slender upright form. Her voice was low and tremulous. "If you'd got
religion, Ephraim, you wouldn't speak in that light manner of one who
has the awful wickedness of adding to the words of the Book."
Ephraim continued to enlighten the preacher in a stronger tone.
"Whether the man is mad or false, almost all the immoralities that you
will hear 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."
Susannah was eating, and with relish. She laid down her bit of pumpkin
pie and stared astonished. Then, being a girl of good sense and good
feeling, she relinquished the remainder of her supper, and, following
her aunt's example, knelt beside her chair.
The two candles and the firelight left shadowy spaces in parts of the
room, and cast grotesque outlines against the walls. Nothing was
familiar to Susannah's eye; she could not help looking about her.
Ephraim was nearest to her. He was a bearded man, and seemed to her
very old. She saw that his face looked pale and distressed; his eyes
were closed, his lips tight set, like one bearing transient pain. At the
end of the table her uncle knelt upright, with hands clasped and face
uplifted, no feature or muscle moving--a strong figure rapt in devotion.
On her other side, as a slight tree waves in the wind, her aunt's slim
figure was swaying and bending with feeling that was now convulsive
and now restrained. Sometimes she moaned audibly or whispered
"Amen." Across the richly-spread table Susannah saw the preacher

kneeling in a full flickering glare of the pine fire, one hand upon the
brick jamb, the other covering his eyes, as if to hide from himself all
things that were seen and temporal in order that he might speak face to
face with the Eternal.
It was some time before she listened to the words of the prayer. When
she heard Ephraim Croom spoken of by name, there was no room in
her mind for anything but curiosity. After a while she heard her