e Church, if it ain't against the command of the Lord; and in Holy
Writ the Lord himself says to Solomon that he would have given him as
many wives as he wanted, barring them being Gentiles."

"I will not argue about the Bible; you and I interpret it very
differently," she cried. "Your social argument might be well enough if
it were not that your good man when he had more than one wife _would
cease to be a good man_"--her voice was vibrating with faith--"and his
children would therefore have the poorest chance from inheritance or
training."

He was again pacing, but paused in his ponderous walk, struck by a flaw
in his argument which he had not before seen. "But if it were commanded
by the Lord, Sister Susannah?"

"God does not command this wickedness. What you command in his name is
at your own peril, Mr. Smith."

He paused before her, asking with reflective curiosity, "Why are you so
sure that it would be wickedness, sister?"

She had not arguments at command; she held fast to her assurance with
the same dogged unreasoning faith with which Ephraim's mother had of old
held her belief that this Smith must be an arch-villain; she had put the
whole power of her volitionary nature upon the side of faith in the
ideal marriage, although she was painfully conscious that she had come
across no particle of evidence for the existence of such a state. Out of
faith, out of mere instinct of heart, which had not worked itself out in
intelligent thought, she gave her unhesitating judgment. "I say that it
would be wicked because I _feel_ that it would be wicked; and any good
woman," she paused and looked him straight in the eyes, "and any good
man, would know its wickedness without arguments, and without weighing
all possible considerations."

His eyes fell before hers. He looked not angry, but grieved. As for
Susannah, in the heat of her indignation she did not know that her own
long effort to resist the unreasoning acceptance of cut-and-dried
doctrines and any dogmatic insistance upon opinion had here failed.

Smith stood for some moments before her, and her fire cooled. He sighed
at her dictum. Then he said gently, "But your judgment in this matter
has great weight with me, sister, and if I accept it you will perceive
that you are indeed the elect lady, and that by living in the light of
your countenance I shall obtain peace."

It was difficult for her not to suppose that her influence was
beneficial. She thought at the mo