ng, not her heart, developed. "Why believe in Moses and the
prophets if not in Smith--in the miracles of yesterday if not in those
of to-day?" was the question with which Halsey prefaced the sermons he
began to preach. The answer that his logic deduced carried conviction to
many of his hearers, but in Susannah's mind the question alone made
way.

_BOOK II._

CHAPTER I.

In the next year, 1831, the new church was formally organised, and this
was the "revelation" given for her direction by the mouth of Joseph
Smith--"And now, behold, I speak unto the Church; thou shalt not kill;
thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not lie; thou shalt love thy wife,
cleaving unto her and to none else; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou
shalt not speak evil of thy neighbour, nor do him any harm. Let him that
goeth to the East tell them that shall be converted to flee to the
West."

The reports of the first missionaries, who had travelled westward,
preaching both to the Indians (called by the "Saints," Lamanites) and to
white men, were received in the beginning of this year, and the point
designated for the first station of the Church on its way westward was a
place called Kirtland, on the banks of the Chagrin River, in northern
Ohio. Thither Halsey was sent, having commands to preach by the way.

At Halsey's wayside meetings the old hymns and the old tunes were sung.
The new doctrine embraced all that was supposed to be alive in the old;
it repudiated only what was supposed to be dead. It offered that
enlargement of human powers which the belief in wonders implies, a new
form of church government, a new land to live in, a new hope of a
visible and glorious church, and, above all, a living prophet. If the
personality of the prophet seemed more attractive to those who believed,
not having seen him, to Susannah, who knew the baseness of his origin so
well, the sudden increase of his influence over hundreds of people
seemed the greatest of marvels; and it was impossible but that even his
person should gain some added grace from the reflected light of success.
Halsey was only one of a dozen successful Mormon preachers who were
converging with their train of followers upon the first station of the
new church.

There is no spot in northern Ohio more lovely than the five hills or
bluffs that rise from the banks of the Chagrin River and its tributary
brooks twelve miles to the south-east of what is now the city of
Cleveland. On