The Lions of the Lord: A Tale of the Old West
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 cured of a lameness by his faith? Didn’t he lay hands upon the blind Catholic girl so that she saw plainly when her eyes rested upon the New Testament and became blind again when she took up the mass book? Are those stories absurd? My father himself saw Joseph cast a devil out of Newell Knight.” 

 “And this awful journey into a horrid desert. Why must you go? Surely there are other ways of salvation.” She hesitated a moment. “I have been told that going to heaven is like going to mill. If your wheat is good, the miller will never ask which way you came.” 

 “Child, child, some one has tampered with you.” 

 She retorted quickly. 

 “He did not tamper, he has never sought to—he was all kindness.” 

 She stopped, her short upper lip holding its incautious mate a prisoner. She blushed furiously under the sudden blaze of his eyes. 

 “So it’s true, what Seth Wright hinted at? To think that you, of all people—my sweetheart—gone over—won over by a cursed mobocrat—a fiend with the blood of our people wet on his hands! Listen, Prue; I’m going into the desert. Even though you beg me to stay, you must have known—perhaps you hoped—that I would go. There are many reasons why I must. For one, there are six hundred and forty poor hunted wretches over there on the river bank, sick, cold, wet, starving, but enduring it all to the death for their faith in Joseph Smith. They could have kept their comfortable homes here and their substance, simply by renouncing him—they are all voluntary exiles—they have only to say ‘I do not believe Joseph Smith was a prophet of God,’ and these same Gentiles will receive them with open arms, give them clothing, food, and shelter, put them again in possession of their own. But they are lying out over there, fever-stricken, 
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