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Show THROUGH GREAT TRIBULATION. 349 summer can add nothing to the sunshine in his heart, for he has found Christina, and she is his promised wife. But she is again a fa-natical Mormon. Her brief experience with the " Morrisites" had been enough of independent thinking for her whole life- time, and she was again with her family, and again one of the sister Saints. And she was more beautiful than ever. Her clear complexion had just enough of the Scandinavian tinge, her soft flaxen hair seemed to the ardent youth finer than silk, her mild blue eye told of an affectionate disposition and faithful heart. But all was not pleasant. She was beautiful to others as well as him; and when the apostate youth, after a wearisome winter in Salt Lake City, traced her to Cache Valley, he did so only to find her sought in marriage by the bishop. And was it not more of an honor to be the " bishop's fourth " and his " favorite," as she certainly would be, than the " slavey " of a poor mechanic, to " nigger it on love and starvation?" Such talk she heard daily. But that was only for this world. As for the next ah, there was the nameless horror she could not shake off. For into the soul of every believing Mormon woman was ground this sentence: " If she will not abide in this law, she shall be damned." And the " Revelation on Celestial Marriage " had too plainly pronounced the future fate of all who marry unbelievers : " They shall be angels only, and not gods ; they shall be servants to those worthy of a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." If she married a Gentile, there could be no " exaltation " for her in the celestial world ; she must re-main a servant forever, " blessed with no increase;" go through eternity without a husband, and be a hewer and drawer to other women who had kept the law on earth. It was too terrible. And so, when her former lover, after long waiting, had an oppor-tunity to speak to her, she told him there was but one thing to do : he must accept the gospel as revealed by Joseph Smith ; he must reen-ter the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints, and live his re-ligion, that he might secure " exaltation " for her and himself. " Reenter the Church be rebaptized ? Why, certainly ; why not ?" thought James. All religions are alike. It is but to pay tithing, and observe the ordinances, to confess the errors of " Morrisite " belief, to be " buried again in baptism," and thenceforward " obey counsel " and run with the current. God knows he had had a hard enough time running against the current; he would let things take their own course now. What mattered it ? He could subscribe to one belief as well as another; and so, in sight of all the congregation, he owned his manifold errors, received absolution, went ' down into the water, |