d. A panorama of wrong--wrong
thinking and wrong doing--extended before his clearing gaze. For once
he seemed to see truth in a vision and to feel the power to utter it.

There was silence again as he stood in front of the little table, the
faces before him frozen into wonder that he should have either the power
or the temerity to answer Brigham. He spoke, and his voice was again
rough with force, and high and fearless, a voice many of them recalled
from the days when he had not been weak.

"Now I see what we have done. Listen, brethren, for God has not before
so plainly said it to any man, and I know my time is short among you. We
have gone back to the ages of Hebrew barbarism for our God--to the God
of Battles worshipped by a heathen people--a God who loved the reek of
blood and the smell of burning flesh. But you shall not--"

He turned squarely and fiercely to the face of Brigham.

"--you shall not confuse that bloody God of Battles with the true
Christ, nor yet with the true God of Love that this Christ came to tell
us of. Once I believed in Him. I was taught to by your priests. War
seemed a righteous thing, for we had been grievously put upon, and I
believed the God of Israel should avenge our wrongs as He had avenged
those of His older Zion. And hear me now--so long as I believed this, I
was no coward; while you, sir--"

A long forefinger was pointed straight at the amazed Brigham.

"--while you, sir, were a craven, contemptible in your cowardice. I
would have fought in Echo Canon to the end, because I believed. But you
did not believe, and so you were afraid to fight. And for your cowardice
and your wretched lusts your name among all but your ignorant dupes
shall become a hissing and a scorn. For mark it well, unless you forsake
that heathen God of Battles and preach the divine Christ of the New
Testament, you shall come to hold only the ignorant, and them only by
keeping them ignorant."

The commotion among the people in front was now all but a panic. On the
platform the sires of Israel whispered one to another, while Brigham
gazed as if fascinated, driven to admiration for the speaker's power and
audacity. For the feverish, fleeting moment, Joel Rae was that veritable
Lion of the Lord he had prayed to be, putting upon the people his spell
of the old days. Heads were again strained up and forward, and amazed
horror was on most of the faces. Far back, Prudence trembled, feeling
that she must be away at on