OCR Text |
Show 358 WESTERN WILDS. Certainly he would go, only he must make some preparations first. But why was Tom so urgent? and if so urgent, why had he kept silent so long ? The Montanian was gone before Manson had thought to ask, and the next minute he was astonished to see Beatty, with a wagon- load of Mormons, driving out the Toocle road. And now it was evening, and he must have some time to think; and when it was morning, he thought he must see Marian once more before he left, for surely if Tom had been sick, or any thing wrong, he would have said so. Now, contrary to the usual rule, bad news does not travel fast in Utah; and when Manson had dispatched a note by the slow mail of those days, a week passed before he could take the first step of preparation ; and at the end of that week came another note, and, strange to say, by another returning miner instead of the mail, and it merely said : " You need not come; wait for me" And it is almost a shame to relate it, but ten minutes after the note was read, Manson had already dismissed it from his mind, and was pondering on his intended visit to Marian. Ah ! love is a terribly selfish passion. And now the conduct of Elder Briarly was more a puzzle than ever. He came again to the store, but talked very little ; and when Manson, after waiting on a customer, happened to glance suddenly at the Elder, he saw the latter watching him with an eager intensity, as if he would read his very thoughts. He could not understand it, and yet , he knew that it made him very uncomfortable. Worse still, it made .' him half afraid ; and so, while he was in a fever of impatience to see . Marian, he still hung back irresolutely till another Sunday came, and . went. He saw her far across the Tabernacle, and was feasting his eyes on her face, when her father was suddenly called upon to " ad-dress the brethren." And now, to Manson's astonishment, Elder Briarly rose and delivered a fierce philippic against all Gentiles, from that very uncompromising text: " He that is not for us, is against us." The Mormons, be it noted, have a most unhappy facility of get-ting hold of all the hard, uncharitable ( I say it with reverence) texts in the Bible ; and while they preach a thousand sermons a year on this text, not one of them was ever known to quote the rendering igiven by another Evangelist: " He that is not against us, is on our ipart." . Manson fairly shuddered while the elder launched metaphorical ' fire and brimstone on " our enemies, who have followed us to these valleys of the mountains," and denounced every lax saint who favored |