em as they would
let him. At last he would lay a plan to bring them all again into his
presence. For he would now have become the God they should worship. He
would send to these children of earth his oldest son, entrusted with the
mission of redeeming them, and only faith in the name of this son would
secure the favour of the father.

Joel Rae instructed his wondering household, further, that such glory as
this would be reserved, not for Brigham alone, but for the least of the
Saints. Each Saint would progress to Godhead, and go down with his Eve
to make and people worlds without end. This, he explained, was why God
had made space to be infinite, since nothing less could have room for
the numberless seed of man. In conclusion, he gave them the words of the
Heaven-gifted Brigham: "Let all who hear these doctrines pause before
they make light of them or treat them with indifference, for they will
prove your salvation or your damnation."

Yet often during that winter while he talked these doctrines he would
find his mind wandering, and there would come before his eyes a little
printed page with a wash of blood across it, and he would be forced to
read in spite of himself the verses that were magnified before his eyes.
The priesthood of which he was a product dealt but little with the New
Testament. They taught from the Old almost wholly, when they went
outside the Book of Mormon and the revelations to Joseph Smith--of the
God of Israel who was a God of Battle, loving the reek of blood and the
smell of burnt flesh on an altar--rather than of the God of the
Nazarene.

He found himself turning to this New Testament, therefore, with a
curious feeling of interest and surprise, dwelling long at a time upon
its few, simple, forthright teachings, being moved by them in ways he
did not comprehend, and finding certain of the dogmas of his Church
sounding strangely in his ears even when his own lips were teaching
them.

One of the verses he especially dreaded to see come before him: "But
whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were
better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he
were drowned in the depth of the sea." He taught the child to pray, "O
God, let my father have due punishment for all his sins, but teach him
never to offend any little child from this day forth."

He used to listen for this and to be soothed when he heard it. Sometimes
the words would come to him when