Speaking succeeded, and the talkers got upon their feet in accordance with certain nods and memoes from the chairman.  They all eulogised in a joyous strain the glories of Mormonism, but never a syllable was expressed about wives.  A young moustached man led the way.  He told the meeting that he had long been of a religious turn of mind; that he was a Wesleyan until 17 years of age; that afterwards he found peace in the Smithsonian church; that the only true creed was that of Mormonism; that it didn’t matter what people said in condemnation of such creed; and that he should always stick to it.  The thin woman, who seemed to have an awful tongue in her head, was the second speaker.  She panegyrised “the church” in a phrensied, fierce-tempered, piping strain, talked rapidly about the “new dispensation,” declared that she had accepted it voluntarily, hadn’t been deceived by any one—­we hope she never will be—­and that she was happy.  Her conclusion was sudden, and she appeared to break off just before reaching an agony-point.  The third talker was one of the old men, and he commenced with things from “before the foundations of the world,” and brought them down to the present day.  His speech was earnest, florid, and rather argumentative in tone.  After stating that he had a pious spell upon him before visiting the room, and that the afflatus was still upon him, he entered into a labyrinthal defence of “the church.”  “Mormonism,” he said, “is more purer than any other doctrine that is,” and “this here faith,” he continued, “has to go on and win.”  He talked mystically about things being “resurrectioned,” contended that the Solomon Spalding theory had been exploded, and quoting one of the elders, said that Mormonism began in a hamlet and got to a village, from a village to a town, thence to a city, thence to a territory, and that if it got “just another kick it would as sure as fate be kicked into a great and mighty nation.”  This “old man eloquent” seemed over head and ears in Mormonism, and almost shook with joy at certain points of his discourse.

The fourth, and the last, speaker was the chairman.  He raised his brawny frame slowly, held a Bible in one hand, and started in this fashion—­“Well I s’pose I’ve to say something; but I can’t tell what it’ll be.”  This declaration was followed up by a long, wandering mass of talk, full of repetition and hypothetical theology—­a mixture of Judaism, Christianity, and Mormonism, and from the whole he endeavoured to distil this “fact” that both Isaiah and St. John had made certain prophetic statements as to the Book of Mormon and its transcription by Joe Smith.  It did not, however, appear from what he said that either Isaiah or the seer of Patmos had named anything about the blanket trick which had to be adopted by Joe is translating “the Book.”  But that was perhaps unnecessary; and we shall not throw a “wet blanket” upon the matter by further alluding to it.  When the chairman had done his speech, the doxology was sung, and this was