The writing took so long that when she carried the letter again to the tithing office to be stamped and sent, the post-bag of that day had already gone.  Later, when the office was closed to the public and Elder Darling was alone, he took up the letter which Susannah had brought and looked at it curiously.  His eyes had caught the address.  He was not sure that he would have put it in the bag even if it had been in time, and now it was clearly his duty to consider.  His was a mind in which there was no place for platonic friendship, and Susannah was obviously a most desirable piece of property to the struggling Church.  The Church had provided the paper for this letter, must needs provide the stamp; he was officially responsible to the Church.  The elder had been an honest man according to the average notions of honesty until within the last weeks, when stress of circumstance had made him reconsider, not for himself but for others, more than one rule of life, and obtain larger latitude.  The building up of the Church in her present sore strait was surely an end to override small scruples.  He acted now as an official, as a priest, when, after a good many painful qualms of conscience, he opened the letter.  After having read its contents, he became convinced that it was for the good of Susannah’s own soul that it should not go.

The ground about Quincy had been drained; the town was comparatively healthy; in a few days more some two thousand of the fugitives felt again the pulse of life in their veins.  Then they looked abroad and clasped every man the hand of his neighbour, and said “Thanks be to God,” and even embraced one another in the joy of relief.  History often shows how exuberant is the joy of human nature at escape, and that the impulse of joy is almost one with the impulse of affection.  At the abatement of the London plague we see Britons kiss each other in the streets, and at the relief of besieged towns, in our own day, staid persons have caressed one another, unmindful of what they did.  So it was now with the members of this driven sect.  The spirit of joy and a closer bond of affection went infectiously through the gathering Church.  Upon the first Sunday they met together in the open air, and sang words that they verily believed had been written in particular prophecy for themselves at this very hour.

    “If it had not been the Lord that was on our side.”

The psalm rose from every throat with the swelling tide of joy.

     “If it had not been the Lord that was on our side when men rose up
     against us.”

Susannah, advancing, a little belated, to the rural preaching which was held in a dip of the plain, heard the lusty chant of irrepressible gladness rising to the blue heavens, and quickened her steps.  In spite of herself she was carried into song by the enthusiasm which seemed to dart like a flame from the assembled multitude and enveloped her.