of my neck or take a drink of catnip tea or
composition, and then the cure of my misery is with the Lord God of
Hosts. But if I send for an administrator, it's different. He takes the
responsibility and I want him to fulfil every will of the Lord. When an
Elder comes to administer to me and is afraid of greasing his fingers or
of dropping a little oil on his vest, and says, 'Oh, never mind the oil!
there ain't any virtue in the olive-oil; besides, I might grease my
gloves,' why I feel like telling such a Godless critter to walk off.
When God says anoint with oil, _anoint_, I don't care if it runs down
his beard as it ran down Aaron's. And I don't want to talk anybody down
or mention any names; but, well, next time when I got a cold and Elder
Beil Wardle is the only administrator free, why, I'll just stand or fall
by myself. A basin of water-gruel, hot, with half a quart of old rum in
it and lots of brown sugar, is better than all _his_ anointing."

To make his days busier there were the affairs of the Church to oversee,
for he was now President of the local Stake of Zion; reports of the
teachers to consider in council meeting, of their weekly visits to each
family, and of the fidelity of each of its members to the Kingdom. And
there were the Deacons and Priests of the Aaronic Order and other Elders
and Bishops of the Order of Melchisedek to advise with upon the temporal
and spiritual affairs of Israel; to labour and pray with Peregrine
Noble, who had declared that he would no longer be as limber as a
tallowed rag in the hands of the priesthood, and to deliver him over to
the buffetings of Satan in the flesh if he persisted in his blasphemy;
to rebuke Ozro Cutler for having brazenly sought to pay on his tithing
some ten pounds of butter so redolent of garlic that the store had
refused to take it from him in trade; to counsel Mary Townsley that Pye
Townsley would come short of his glory before God if she remained
rebellious in the matter of his sealing other jewels to his crown; to
teach certain unillumined Saints something of the ethics of unbranded
cattle; and to warn settlers against isolating themselves in the
outlying valleys where they would be a temptation to the red sons of
Laman.

Again there was the rite of baptism to be administered,--not an onerous
office in the matter of the living, but apt to become so in the case of
the dead; for the whole world had been in darkness and sin since the
apostolic gifts were l