orm greeted this. It was led by the Wild
Ram of the Mountains. In his chair the little bent man now cowered lower
and lower, one moment praying for strength, the next for death; feeling
the blood surge through him like storm waves that would beat him down.
If only Heaven would send him one last moment of power to word this
truth so that it might prevail. But Brigham was continuing.

"And what of this Elder Brother, Jesus? Did he reject the patriarchal
order--like some poor pusillanimous cry-babies among us? No, I say! It
will be borne in mind that once on a time there was a marriage in Cana
of Galilee; and on a careful reading of that transaction it will be
discovered that no less a person than Jesus Christ was married on that
occasion. If he was never married his intimacy with Mary and Martha, and
the other Mary also, whom Jesus loved, must have been highly unbecoming
and improper, to say the best of it. I will venture to say that, if
Jesus Christ was now to pass through the most pious countries in
Christendom, with a train of women such as used to follow Him, fondling
about Him, combing His hair, anointing Him with precious ointments,
washing His feet with tears, and wiping them with the hair of their
heads,--that, unmarried or even married, He would be mobbed, tarred and
feathered, and ridden, not on an ass, but on a rail. Now did He
multiply, and did He see His seed? Others may do as they like, but I
will not charge our Saviour with neglect or transgression in this or any
other duty."

He turned and went to his seat with a last threatening gesture, amid
many little sounds of people relaxing from strained positions.

But then, before another could arise, a wonder came upon them. The
little man stood up and came quickly forward, a strange new life in his
step, a new confidence in his bearing, a curious glow of new strength in
his face. Even his stoop had straightened for the moment. For, as he had
listened to Brigham's last words, the picture of his vision in the
desert had come back,--the cross in the sky, the crucified Saviour upon
it, the head in death-agony fallen over upon the shoulder. And then
before his eyes had come page after page of that New Testament with a
wash of blood across two of them. He felt the new life he had prayed for
pouring into his veins, and with it a fierce anger. The one on the cross
who had been more than man, who had shirked no sacrifice and loved
infinitely, was not thus to be assaile