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Show 350 WESTERN WILDS. was cleansed, and was again " Brother Thomas James, of Logan Ward, assigned to Brother William Sessions' class, and to be fellow-shiped accordingly." How smoothly sped his love- making then ! How light appeared his duties on the farm where he had contracted for the season's work ! How mild the soft moonlight nights, how grand the calm mountains, how beautiful the crystal Logan River as it dashed down the pebbly rapids near her home ! Evening after evening he was with her. The bishop seemed to have given up his suit. Her friends, however, fa-vored the man of position ; he was of assured faith ; this one might apostatize again. There is an old proverb in Utah, which has some-thing to say about the " danger of being rival to a bishop ;" but could any thing be more cordial than the conduct of Bishop Warren to the reconverted man ? Almost in spite of himself James was led on to open his heart more freely to Bishop Warren than he would have believed possible a year before. And it must be confessed that he was not as thoroughly versed in some of the minor points of doctrine as a man should be to make a good impression on a bishop. And now James was very much surprised to find that two or three of his acquaint-ances, young men of his own age, had their doubts also about the truth of Mormonism ; and, though he would not have had the bishop know it for the world, he conversed freely with them, and confessed his own motives and mental condition. True, he knew these young men sometimes served as ward teachers, but what of that ? Was it not probable that, like himself, the very intensity of their Avork for Mormonism had set them to thinking ? He knew that had been his own case. But there Avere several things he did not knoAv. He did not know that on the soft, AA'arm moonlight nights, Avhen he lingered in the garden or grove with Christina, there AA 7as an eye and ear not far aAvay, trained to the secret service of the Church ; and that, as his love- making progressed, and father and mother left them more to themsehT es, and they spent half the night in the cosy arbor back of the house, there Avas a mysterious Avay by which all their familiar secret dalliance became a part of the Church records. No ; . there were deeper depths in Mormonism than Avere suspected by the most sus-picious English Saint ; and even now in Utah not one in ten knoAvs the power that controls him. But human nature, especially male na-ture, is not changed by the stimulating air of Utah ; and so, as the warm nights passed, Christina's soft hair tAvined in his fingers, her fair cheek resting on his bosom, her young and graceful form clasped in his arniB, her heart gently agitated Avith the half- resisting, half- |
