ot. I know right well
there must be good Mexicans alive, though I never saw one, and I suppose
of course there must be--"

"Oh, you're worse than I thought!" she cried. "Come now, do try. I want
you to be made better, for my sake." She looked at him with real
pleading in her eyes. He dropped back to the ground with a thrill of
searching religious fervour.

"Go on," he said, feelingly. "I'm ready for anything. I have kind of a
good feeling running through me already. I do believe you'll be a
powerful lot of benefit to me."

"You must have faith," she answered, intent on the book. "Now I'll tell
you some things first."

Had the Gentile been attentive he might have learned that the Book of
Mormon is an inspired record of equal authority with the Jewish
Scriptures, containing the revelations of Jehovah to his Israel of the
western world as the Bible his revelations to Israel in the Orient,--the
veritable "stick of Joseph," that was to be one with "the stick of
Judah;" that the angel Moroni, a messenger from the presence of God,
appeared to Joseph Smith, clad in robes of light, and told him where
were hid the plates of gold on which were graven this fulness of the
everlasting gospel; how that Joseph, after a few years of preparation,
was let to take these sacred plates from the hill of Cumorah; also an
instrument called the Urim and Thummim, consisting of two stones set in
a silver bow and made fast to a breast-plate, this having been prepared
by the hands of God for use in translating the record on the plates; how
Joseph, seated behind a curtain and looking through the Urim and Thummim
at the characters on the plates, had seen their English equivalents over
them, and dictated these to his amanuensis on the other side of the
curtain.

He might have learned that when the book was thus translated, the angel
Moroni had reclaimed the golden plates and the Urim and Thummim,
leaving the sacred deposit of doctrine to be given to the world by
Joseph Smith; that the Saviour had subsequently appeared to Joseph; also
Peter, James, and John, who laid hands upon him, ordained him, gave him
the Holy Ghost, authorised him to baptise for the remission of sins, and
to organise the Kingdom of God on earth.

"Do you understand so far?" she asked.

"It's fine!" he answered, fervently. "I feel kind of a glow coming over
me already."

She looked at him closely, with a quick suspicion, but found his profile
uninforming; at least of anyt