“O brethren, let me beg you to be good—­simply good.  Nothing can prevail against you if you are.  If you are not, nothing shall avail you,—­the power of no priesthood, no signs, ordinances, or rituals.  Believe me, I know.  Not even the forgiveness of the Father.  For I tell you there is a divinity within each of you that you may some day unwittingly affront; and then you shall lie always in hell, for if you cannot forgive yourself, the forgiveness of God will not free you even if it come seventy times seven.  I know.  For fifteen years I have lain in hell for the work this Church did at Mountain Meadows.  A cross was put there to the memory of those we slew.  Not a day has passed but that cross has been burned and cut into my living heart with a blade of white heat.  Now I am going to hell; but I am tired and ready to go.  Nor do I go as a coward, as you will go—­”

Again the long forefinger was flung out to point at Brigham.

“—­but I shall go as a fighter to the end.  I have not worshipped Mammon, and I have conquered my flesh—­conquered it after it had once all but conquered me, so that I had to fight the harder—­”

He stopped, waiting as if he were not done, but the spell was broken.  The life, indeed, had in the later moments been slowly dying from his words; and, as they lost their fire, scattered voices of protest had been heard; then voices in warning from behind him, and the sound of two or three rising and pushing back their chairs.

Now that he no longer heard his own voice he stood quivering and panic-stricken, the fire out and the pained little smile coming to make his face gentle again.  He turned weakly toward Brigham, but the Prophet had risen from his seat and his broad back was rounded toward the speaker.  He appeared to be consulting a group of those who stood on the platform, and they who were not of this group had also turned away.

The little bent man tried again to smile, hoping for a friendly glance, perhaps a hand-clasp without words from some one of them.  Seeing that he was shunned, he stepped down off the platform at the side, twisting his hat in his long, thin hands in embarrassment.  A moment he stood so, turning to look back at the group of priests and Elders around the Prophet, seeking for any sign, even for a glance that should be not unkind.  The little pained smile still lighted his face, but no friendly look came from the others.  Seeing only the backs turned toward him, he at length straightened out his crumpled hat, still smiling, and slowly put it on his head; as he turned away he pulled the hat farther over his eyes, and then he was off along the dusty street, looking to neither side, still with the little smile that made his face gentle.

But when he had come to the end of the street and was on the road up the hill, the smile died.  He seemed all at once to shrink and stoop and fade,—­no longer a Lion of the Lord, but a poor, white-faced, horrified little man who had meant in his heart to give a great revelation, and who had succeeded only in uttering blasphemy to the very face of God’s prophet.