Ohio was being quickly settled. Within a few miles of Kirtland,
Cleveland and Paynesville were rising on the lake shore, and to the
south there were numerous villages; but the society of the Saints at
Kirtland was especially prosperous, and so sudden had been the increase
of its numbers and its wealth that the wonder of the neighbouring
settlers gave birth to envy, and envy intensified their religious
hatred. Twice before Smith had left Fayette he had been arrested and
brought before a magistrate, accused of committing crimes of which the
courts were unable to convict him. Now the same spirit gave rise to the
same accusations against his followers. About this time webs of cloth
were taken from a woollen mill near Paynesville, and several horses were
also stolen. The Mormons, whether guilty or not, were accused by common
consent of the orthodox and irreligious part of the community. Hatred of
the adherents of the new sect began to rise in all the neighbouring
country, as a ripple rises on the sea when the wind begins to blow; the
growing wave broke here and there in little ebullitions of wrath, and
still gained strength until it bid fair to surge high.
About Christmas time there were a number of cases of illness in
Kirtland. Joseph Smith healed one woman, who appeared to be dying, by
merely taking her by the hand, after praying, and commanding her to get
up. After that he went about with great confidence to others who were
stricken, and in many cases health seemed to return with remarkable
celerity. It is hard to understand why the report of this, going abroad
with such addition as gossip gives, should have greatly added to the
rage of the members of other religious sects. Perhaps they supposed that
the prophet arrogated to himself powers that were even more than
apostolic. They threatened violence to Kirtland on the prophet's
account, so that before the new year he took Emma and the child and
established himself with them in an obscure place called Hiram, some
twenty miles to the south. Sydney Rigdon, who by this time was, under
the prophet, the chief leader of the Saints, went also to Hiram to be
beside him. Smith was toiling night and day to produce a new version of
the Hebrew Scriptures, believing that he was taught by inspiration to
correct errors in them. Rigdon was scribe and reviser. These two being
absent from Kirtland, responsibility and work without limit rested again
with Angel Halsey.
With unsatisfied affections and thoughts wholly perplexed, Susannah
beheld the days of the new year lengthening. Then she fell into the
weakness, to which humanity is prone, of hoping eagerly for some
external circumstance that should lighten the inner darkness. A bit of
stray news one day came to her with the shock of an apparent fulfilment
of her vague expectation. Finney was passing through that part of the
country preaching. Of all human beings she had ever met, this remarkable
evangelist most impressed her as a man who had intimate dealing, awful,
yet friendly, with an unseen power. She had no sooner heard that he was
within reach than her mind leaped to the determination to hear him
preach and speak with him again. She would lay her difficulties before
him; she would hear from him more intelligence concerning the home which
she had left than a thousand letters could convey.
It was March now. The winter's snow was gone. Finney, as it chanced, was
to come as near to Kirtland as the village of Hiram. Susannah spoke to
her husband.
"Did you hear that Mr. Finney was going to preach at Hiram?"
She stood turning from the white spread table in the centre of the room.
The morning light was shining on the satin surface of the planed maple
wood with which walls and ceiling were lined. Halsey was putting on his
boots to go out to his day's round of business and pastoral work. He
knew just as well as if she had explained it to him that a great deal
lay behind what she said. He fell to wondering at once what she could
want. Was it to send a message to the old home by the man whose very
name must recall all its memories?
"I want to go and hear him preach," Susannah went on.
Halsey was disturbed. "Thou canst not really have such a desire," he
said severely.
"Why not? A great deal that he preaches is just the same as what you
preach, Angel."
He saw that she was in a turbulent mood, and that grieved him; but as
for her request, he could not believe it to be serious.
"Thou art speaking idle words," he said with a sigh, and he rose to go
out.
"You have not answered me. Why shouldn't I hear him when you agree that
much that he says is true?"
"He is in the camp of those whom Satan has stirred up to do us injury.
That which thou callest truth in his mouth is but the form of godliness,
for it is clear that if God be with those who fight against us he cannot
be with us."
Something in the expression of her face brought him now a more distinct
feeling of alarm. His nature was singularly direct. He had scarcely
finished his meditative argument ere he sought to clinch its purport,
and, stepping near, he laid his hand gently upon her shoulder.
"Dost thou doubt, Susannah, that God is with us?"
The crimson colour mounted from her cheeks and spread over her white
brow. It was as if Angel had asked what he never had asked, whether she
loved him or not, whether all her thoughts and feelings were loyal. She
knew that for him there was no line of separation between life and love,
and love and religion. She was careful for him always, as a mother is
for a delicate child, as a sick nurse is for a patient. She could not
have endured to give him the pain of hearing her denial, even if such
denial would have expressed her attitude truly.
"Indeed, Angel, I--I know that you--" she faltered.
The trouble in his face was growing. "Has not _God_ made the signs of
his presence clear to us, and even visible before our eyes? If thou
shouldst deny the outward signs, is it not by his grace that we live?
Susannah, dost thou think that it is in me by nature to bear with the
infirmities and murmurings of our people as I bear with them
daily--babes as they are, learning, but not yet having learned, to live
at peace with one another? Or dost thou think that it is in me to
forgive daily the outrageous acts and words of our enemies, trying as
they do to injure our innocent brothers, or even our prophet himself?
Yet, Susannah" (his voice was stirred with emotion), "I would bear
witness to thee that every day, as I pray, the anger is taken out of my
heart, and I can deal with these very men in the spirit of love."
Standing erect before him, confused and distressed, she made another
effort to soothe, even taking his hand from her shoulder and trying to
caress it between her own, but so tense was the question in his mind
that his fingers were limp and unresponsive to her touch.
"I know all that you would say, Angel; I know that you are good; I know
that our people, although they have many faults, are trying to do right,
and I believe that the people in other sects around us are far more
wicked, but--Mr. Finney is not like that."
"Dear heart, thou knowest well that there is no goodness but that which
comes from above, and although this Mr. Finney may have a show of
goodness, as thou or I might have in his place, yet what avail can his
preaching be if God be not with him? So what show of goodness he has
only aideth the devil; for how can it be possible, when two armies are
encamped one against another, that God can fight upon both sides? Is
Christ divided?"
A loud knock came to the outer door; Elder Halsey was late in getting to
his work; men were waiting for him. He let the sound of the raps die
away before he answered them; his searching look was upon her face,
hungering for some assurance that his words had met and slain her
doubts. Then he was forced to leave her.
It was easy for Susannah to obtain a horse to go to the village of
Hiram. When the day of Finney's preaching came, after her husband had
gone to his afternoon work, she rode out of Kirtland.
Since she had made up her mind to disobey she had said nothing further
to Angel. Why inflict upon him the painful attempt to hinder her which
his conscience would demand?
The last snow-wreath had faded, but there was not as yet a bud or blade
of perfect green. The valley of the Chagrin lay almost hueless in the
cold sunshine. A light wind was blowing over its levels of standing
weeds, and whispering in the bare arms of the huge nut-trees upon its
bluffs.
When the sun began to sink, Susannah had reached the low rolling ground
that surrounds Hiram. The landscape here had a less distinctive
character, and there was no vapour in the sky to make the sunset
beautiful. She was weary of her horse's rough trot, and still more so of
its slow plodding, but she felt excitement. She had conquered those
forces, part of her womanhood, which urged compliance with her husband's
desire and her own desire to abide by the homely routine whatever it
might be. The thing that she had done seemed so large that her
imagination told her that the event must justify it.
She had no thought of concealment. She knew only the two families in the
village of Hiram. Her plan was to go first to the Rigdons and ask for
refreshment, thence to the meeting, and after that to ask for the
night's lodging which she knew that Emma Smith would not refuse.
In the village she saw that people were moving about and talking with an
air of excitement. When she turned to a quiet corner and asked an
elderly man for Mrs. Rigdon's house, he stared at her as if at an
apparition.
"Is it Sydney Rigdon's wife that you're wanting?"
Susannah had raised her veil, and he looked at her face with the
greatest curiosity. Flushed with exercise, braced by the sharp air, her
colour was brilliant and her eyes sparkling. Her plain dress and heavy
veil appeared to the man to be a disguise, so surprising to him was the
brilliancy of her face and the modulation of her voice.
"Do you not know where the Rigdons live?" she asked.
He was chewing tobacco, and now he spat upon the ground, not rudely, but
as performing an habitual action in a moment of abstracted thought. "Oh,
I know well enough, but if ye won't mind my saying a word to ye, young
lady, I'd advise ye to put up somewhere else. I've got darters of my
own--in course I don't know who ye may be or what ye may be doing
here." This last was added in an apparent attempt to attain to some
suspicion that he felt to be reasonable.
"You think ill of them because you despise their sect," she said gently,
"but I am the wife of one of the elders."
"Have ye got hold of some news that ye're carrying to them?" He evinced
a sudden interest that appeared to her extraordinary.
"What news?"
"Oh, _I_ don't know. I jest thought 'twas queer, if you'd got hold of
anybody's secrets, that you should be asking where they lived, straight
out and open in the street like this."
His words suggested to her only the idle fancies of prejudice. Some
other people drew near, and, dropping her veil, she was starting in the
direction in which he pointed when he spoke again in a more determined
voice. "You jest tell me one thing, will you?" He even laid his hand
upon her bridle with authority, "Are ye going to stop at Rigdons' all
night?"
"No."
"Sartin?"
When he received her reply he let go the bridle, saying in warning
tones, "Well, see that ye don't do it, that's all."
The incident left a disagreeable impression on Susannah's, mind, but she
did not attach any distinct meaning to it.
Rigdon and his wife were both within. Rigdon locked the door when
Susannah had entered. Then with crossed arms, standing where he could
watch against intruders from the window, he began to tell her news of
import. His mother, who was an old woman, his wife, and some younger
members of the family, gathered round.
The light fell sideways upon his thickset form and large hairy face. His
manner was the result of struggle between effort for heroic pose and an
almost overmastering alarm. His matter was the evil conduct of the
surrounding Gentiles toward the Saints. It seemed that in this and
neighbouring places, evangelistic meetings had been held in which
Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists had joined, and Rigdon averred
that the preachers had used threatening and abusive language with regard
to the Saints. A series of such meetings had begun in Hiram, small as it
was; and Joseph Smith, like a war-horse scenting the battle, had set
aside his arduous task of correcting the Old Testament and gone forth to
preach in the open air. At first he had been greeted only with derision
or pelted with mud, but in the last few days he had made and baptized
converts, and now the fury of the other sects was at white heat.
Susannah's mind swiftly sifted out the improbabilities from Rigdon's
wrathful tale.
"But the people that gather to such meetings as Mr. Finney holds are for
the most part awaked, for the time at least, to a higher Christian
life. It cannot be they who have used the vile language that you
repeat."
She almost felt the disagreeable heat of Rigdon's breath as he threw out
in answer stories of coarse and brutal insult which had been heaped upon
himself and Smith. The large animal nature of this man always annoyed
her. There was much of breath in his words, much of physical sensation
always clinging to his thoughts. At present, however, she was not
inclined to judge him too hardly; although visibly unstrung, unwise in
his sweeping condemnation, coarse in his anger, and somewhat
grandiloquent in his pose, there was still much of real heroism in his
mental attitude. Braced by the fiercest party spirit, he stood staunch
in his loyalty to Smith and the cause, with no thought of yielding an
inch of ground to the oppressors.
"I do not believe," repeated Susannah sturdily, "that it is the more
religious of the Gentiles who have said and done these things. I have
come here to-night to hear and to speak with Mr. Finney, whom I know to
be a very godly and patient man."
"Why has he come here?" demanded Rigdon. "He who by his preaching can
gather thousands in populous places, why should he ride across this
thinly settled parcel of land, preaching to mere handfuls, if it is not
to denounce us? And he has not the courage to go nearer to the place
where the Saints are gathered in numbers. He will teach his hearers
first to ravage the few sheep that are scattered in the wilderness, that
by that they may gain courage even to attack the fold."
Susannah drew upon herself their anger, and so strong was Rigdon's
physical nature that even his transient anger seemed to embody itself in
some sensible influence that went out from him and preyed upon her
nervous force.
The night had fallen. A bell, the rare possession of the largest
meeting-house, had already begun to ring for Finney's preaching.
Susannah went out on foot. The Rigdons, as also the Smiths, were living
some way from the village. She had now a mile of dark road to traverse.
Closely veiled, Susannah stepped onward eagerly. She felt like a child
going home. The scene which she had left showed up vividly the elements
of Mormon life that were most repulsive to her, the broad assumptions of
ignorance, the fierce beliefs born of isolation, and the growth by
indulgence of such animal characteristics as were not kept under by a
literal morality or enforced by privations. She was going to see a man
who could speak with the voice of the sober past, whose tones would
bring back to her the intellectual delicacies of Ephraim's conversation,
the broad, pure vision of life which he beheld, and the dignified
religion of his people.
The meeting-house was of moderate size. It was already filled when
Susannah entered, but she was able to press down one of the passage-ways
between the pews and seat herself near the front, where temporary
benches were being rapidly set up.
Many of the congregation had doubtless come as far as she. Men and women
of all ages, and even children, were there. Some, who it seemed had
followed Finney from his last place of preaching, were talking excitedly
concerning the work of God which he had wrought there. On every face
solemnity was written, and stories were being told of one and another
who in his recent meetings had "fallen under the power of God."
When Finney ascended the pulpit Susannah forgot all else. The chapel was
not well lighted, but the pulpit lamps shone upon him. He had a smooth,
strong face; his complexion was healthy and weather-beaten; his dark
eyes flashed brightly under bushy brows. His manner was calm; his style,
even in prayer, was that of keen, terse argument; he spoke and behaved
like a man who, having spent the emotional side of his nature in some
private gust of passionate prayer, had come forth nerved to cool and
determined action.
With her whole soul Susannah hung upon his every word, unreasonably
expecting to find some new and unforeseen solution to the problems of
her life. He had pointed out a straight path to multitudes; she hoped
that he could now show it to her.
The power of Finney's preaching lay in its close logical reasoning, by
which, accepting certain premises, he built up the conclusion that if a
man would escape eternal punishment he must forsake his sin and accept
salvation by faith in the doctrine of the substitution. He began always
by speaking to the indifferent and the unconvinced; he led them step by
step, until it appeared that there was but one step between them and
destruction, and that faith must make one quick, long leap to gain the
safety of the higher plane, whose joys he depicted in glowing terms.
For the most part there was intense silence in the congregation,
although sometimes an audible whisper of prayer or a groan of suppressed
emotion was heard. The infection of mental excitement was strong.
Susannah was experiencing disappointment. Accustomed as she was to
excitement in the meetings of the Saints, her mind easily resisted the
infectious influence. Finney's teaching had not differed in any respect
from the doctrine which she heard from her husband daily, a doctrine
which she knew by experience did not save men from delusion and rancour.
She still listened eagerly to hear of some provision made in the scheme
of salvation against injustice and folly. Surely Finney would say
something more.
As it happened he did say something more. When for more than an hour he
had explained the great plan of salvation he touched upon the
responsibility that the hearing of such conclusive reasoning imposed.
The sower had sown broadcast; it remained for him to speak with awful
impressiveness of those forces which would be arrayed against the
convicted soul. Under this head he referred at once and with deep
emotion to the devil, who, in the guise of false teachers lying in wait,
caught up the seed.
There could be no doubt that the Mormon leaders were in his mind, as
they were in the mind of his congregation. It became swiftly evident to
Susannah that Finney was stirred by what he believed to be righteous
indignation, and that he was as content to be ignorant concerning the
doctrines and morals of the people against whom he spoke as were the
rudest members of the outside rabble who now pressed with excitement to
the open doors and windows.
The righteous Finney had no thought of unrestrained violence. He spoke
out of that deep well of hatred for evil that is, and ought to be, in
every good man's heart, but he had not humbled himself to gain any real
insight into the mingling of good and evil.
"They are liars, and they know that they are liars," said Finney,
striking the pulpit cushion. "The hypocrisy of their religion is proved
by the lawless habits of their daily lives. Having sold themselves to
the great enemy of souls, they lie in wait for you and for your
children, seeking to beguile the most tender and innocent, that they
may rejoice in their destruction."
He used only such phrases as the thought of the time warranted with
regard to those who had been proved to be workers of iniquity, but to
Susannah it was clear, in one brief moment, what effect his words would
have when heard by, or reported to, more brutal men. She knew now that
Rigdon's words were true. The so-called Christian ministers, even the
noblest of them, stirred up the low spirit of party persecution.
She rose suddenly, sweeping back her veil from her face. "I will go
out." She said the words in a clear voice.
A way was made to a back door by the side of the pulpit. Every one
looked at her. Finney, going on with his preaching, recognised her as
she began to push forward, and he faltered, as if seeing the face of one
who had arisen from the dead. The excited audience felt the tremor that
passed over its leader; it was the first signal for such obvious nervous
affections as frequently befell people under his preaching; before
Susannah had reached the door a stalwart man fell as if dead in her
path.
There was a groan and a whisper of awe all round. This was the "falling"
which was taken by many as an indubitable sign of the divine power.
Susannah had seen it often under Smith's preaching. She waited with
indifference until he was lifted up.
Then the sea of faces around her, the powerful voice of the preacher
resounding above, passed away like a dream, and were exchanged for a
small room and a dim light, where two or three people were gathered
round the form of the insensible man. She escaped unnoticed through a
private door into the fields, where the March wind eddied in the black
night.