d seventy-eight pounds and most all heart--and she'd be a
prize to anybody,' but then, that was his way,--Wilbur was a good deal
of a take-on,--and there was never anything between him and me. And when
the Elder come along and begun to preach about the new Zion and tell
about the strange ways that the Lord had ordered people to act out here,
something kind of went all through me, and I says, 'That's the place for
_me_!' Of course, the saying is, 'There ain't any Gawd west of the
Missouri,' but them that says it ain't of the house of Israel--lots of
folks purtends to be great Bible readers, but pin 'em right down and
what do you find?--you find they ain't really studied it--not what you
could call _pored_ over it. They fuss through a chapter here and
there, and rush lickety-brindle through another, and ain't got the
blessed truth out of any of 'em--little fine points, like where the Lord
hardened Pharaoh's heart every time, for why?--because if He hadn't 'a'
done it Pharaoh would 'a' give in the very first time and spoiled the
whole thing. And then the Lord would visit so plumb natural and
commonlike with Moses--like tellin' him, 'I appeared unto Abraham, unto
Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty, for by my name
Jehovah was I not known unto them.' I thought that was awful cute and
friendly, stoppin' to talk about His name that way. Oh, I've spent hours
and hours over the blessed Book. I bet I know something you don't,
now--what verse in the Bible has every letter in the alphabet in it
except 'J'? Of course you wouldn't know. Plenty of preachers don't. It's
the twenty-first verse of the seventh chapter of the book of Ezra. And
the Book of Mormon--I do love to git set down in a rocker with my shoes
off--I'm kind of a heavy-footed person to be on my feet all day--and
that blessed Book in my hands--such beautiful language it uses--that
verse I love so, 'He went forth among the people waving the rent of his
garment in the air that all might see the writing which he had wrote
upon the rent,'--that's sure enough Bible language, ain't it? And yet
some folks say the Book of Mormon ain't inspired. And that lovely verse
in Second Niphi, first chapter, fourteenth verse: 'Hear the words of a
trembling parent whose limbs you must soon lay down in the cold and
silent grave from whence no traveller can return.' Back home the
school-teacher got hold of that--he's an awful smarty--and he says, 'Oh,
that's from Shakespeare,' or