All the doings of the infant sect were directed by those utterances of Joseph Smith which he held to be revelations.  These were confided sometimes to the elders, sometimes to the converts at large.  Susannah frequently heard of them first through Emma Smith, whose pious heart was constantly filled with wonder and thankfulness at the thought of the great honour vouchsafed to her husband.  These revelations, sometimes illimitable in their sweep, and sometimes having reference only to the most minute practical details, were at this time all in accordance either with the dictates of common sense or with the severely literal meaning of some Scripture text.  They were therefore easily justified either to reason or to the eye of faith, but the results of their application were often startling, and it was facts, not theories, that chiefly caused Susannah to stagger.

At length the growing excitement among the congregation seemed to gather toward some climax.  It was then that Joseph Smith was said for the first time to cast out devils.

Near to John Biery’s hotel lived a family of the name of Knight.  The worthy farmer became a convert, and so also, in appearance, did his son.  Susannah first saw them at their baptism, which took place one cold bleak day in the margin of Seneca Lake.  The horses which had brought the little company to the edge of the water, having been tied among the trees, made a constant rustling and trampling among the fallen leaves.  The sharp rustle, the thud of the hoofs upon the ground, were sounds long connected in her mind with the crisis of her doubt, which then began.  The maples stood above them, tall and leafless; the waters of the lake were leaden in hue and cold.  Looking southward on either side of its long flood, the snores with their many points and headlands lay cold, almost hueless, near by, and in the distance blue as tarnished steel.

It was a bitter day for baptist and for the immersed.  Joseph Smith went out alone into the water, commanding the other elders to remain upon the shore.  Whatever else the man had or had not, he had splendid courage in facing physical ills.  There were but few candidates.  Susannah, standing apart near the shore, chanced to be in the path by which the younger Knight descended to the water.  He was a young man with strong features and a thick, unhealthy skin.  He was dressed in the wet garments which another candidate had taken off.  Cold he might have been, but as he passed she heard his teeth chatter so loudly that it almost seemed to her that his very bones rattled.  She drew back with the impression that some horrible thing had passed by.  Before she had time to wonder that the chill should have had such an effect upon the hardy fellow, his feet were in the water, and he turned and caught her eye.  The look he gave her became suddenly one of terrified entreaty.

Susannah did not move; she was spell-bound.  He began to wade toward Smith, who stood in the deeper water.  She wondered why he allowed himself to be immersed.  She was certain that he did not desire it, was certain also that no motives of interest, no physical force, could have operated to compel, when suddenly she asked herself sharply, what force had taken her into the waters of this extraordinary baptism?