Susannah, is this true?" He
put his head a little on one side and looked at her with his eyes
partially closed.

"You need not take very long to explain that you worship the letter of
the Scriptures, for I know it already, Mr. Smith."

But he was in full tide, and went on, "When the Book says, 'Heal the
sick,' we don't say that that means something else, but we set about and
heal 'em." He slapped his knee with the palm of his hand. "When it says,
'Cast out devils,' we don't stare round like the other sects and say,
'There ain't no devils,' but we cast 'em out; and in the same way, when
the Book says that the priesthood of Aaron and the priesthood after the
order of Melchizedek shall be serving always in the church and in the
temple, then we say, 'Amen, so shall it be'; and the same way with
regard to tithing, for the Lord's tithes are recognised among us, and
the first-fruits, and the Sabbath day, and all such ordinances, no
picking and choosing as others."

Then he explained to her again, as in Kirtland, that he was in doubt
concerning the marriage laws of the State. He said that, having searched
the Scriptures, and learned what he could from other books, he was fully
convinced that it was the modern so-called "orthodox" Christian Church
(in which little else but signs of deadness and lack of faith appeared)
that alone condemned the ancient usage of the patriarchs, which in the
Bible was nowhere condemned. He had read in a book that many of the Jews
and most of the Asiatics had more than one wife at the time of the
apostles, and yet they had not preached against this as an evil.

"They did not preach against slavery," said Susannah.

"They did not," he said, "and I would say parenthetically, my sister,
that it may be that our views on that subject, coming from the northern
States as you and I have done, have not been according to the mind of
the Lord. I would have no man a slave because of misfortune, but if a
man proved himself unfit to rule himself, I'm not sure about his being
free."

"Do you intend to revive slavery in our own race? Will your own people
when they fail in business be sold, with their wives and children, as
in the Old Testament?"

"I can't see but that it would be a deal less mean to arrange it that
way than to bring a race of free blacks from their own country and make
every child they have a slave because he happens to be a nigger." She
remarked that his mild blue eye lit up with the true