tening the strain of his face. "You were wise to give me food,
else I couldn't have solved this mystery. To the beginning, then: You,
Prudence Corson, betrothed to me these three years and more; you have
been buried in the waters of baptism and had your washings and
anointings in the temple of the most high God. Is it not so? Your eyes
were anointed that they might be quick to see, your ears that they might
be apt at hearing, your mouth that you might with wisdom speak the words
of eternal life, and your feet that they might be swift to run in the
ways of the Lord. You accepted thereby the truth that the angel of God
had delivered to Joseph Smith the sealing keys of power. You accepted
the glorious articles of the new covenant. You were about to be sealed
up to me for time and eternity. Now--I am lost--what is it?--your
father and mother have left the church, and because of what?"

"Because of bad things, because of this doctrine they practise--this
wickedness of spiritual wives, plural wives. Think of it, Joel--that if
I were your wife you might take another."

"I need not think of it. Surely you know my love. You know I could not
do that. Indeed I have heard at last that this doctrine so long gossiped
of is a true one. But I have been away and am not yet learned in its
mysteries. But this much I do know--and it is the very corner-stone of
my life: Peter, James, and John ordained Joseph Smith here on this
earth, and Joseph ordained the twelve. All other churches have been
established by the wisdom or folly of man. Ours is the only one on earth
established by direct revelation from God. It has a priesthood, and that
priesthood is a power we must reverence and obey, no matter what may be
its commands. When the truth is taught me of this doctrine you speak of,
I shall see it to be right for those to whom it is ordained. And
meantime, outside of my own little life--my love for you, which would be
always single--I can't measure the revealed will of God with my little
moral foot-rule. Joseph was endowed with the open vision. He saw God
face to face and heard His voice. Can the standards of society in its
present corruption measure and pass upon the revelations of so
white-souled a man?"

"I believe he was not white-souled," she replied, in a kind, animated
way, as one who was bent upon saving him from error. "I told you I knew
why you were sent away on mission. It was because you were my accepted
lover--and your white-soul