"I know that well, but this is not a gravestone," Roger retorted. "It is a work of art. It is at once a portrait and a thing of beauty."
"That is but paltering. Thee knows well it is at once a forbidden thing and a monument beyond the regulation in height, and therefore doubly offensive to the Meeting. We will not tolerate such folly. I say to thee again, take the unholy thing down. Will thee urge disrespect to the whole Society? Thee knows it is in opposition to all our teaching. What devil's spirit has seized upon thee?"
"Thee may storm," stoutly answered Roger, "but I am not to be frightened. This plot of ground is mine. This figure is also mine. It is a blessed comfort, a sign of love and not a thing of evil—and I will not take it away from here for thee nor for all the elders."
Nicholas, perceiving that Roger was not to be coerced at the moment, ceased argument, but his wrath did not cool.
"Thee shall come before the Meeting forthwith."
The following day a summons was issued calling a council, and a messenger came to Roger calling him before his elders in judgment.
Thereupon a sharp division was set up among the neighbors and the discussion spread among the Friends. The question of "Free Will in Burial Stones" was hotly debated wherever two or three of the members met, so that the mind of each was firmly made up by the time the Meeting came together to try the question publicly. "I see no wrong in it," said some. "It is disgraceful," others heatedly charged.
Roger's act was denounced by his own family as treason to the Meeting, as well as heretical to the faith, and his father, old Nathan Barnes, rising with solemn and mournful dignity, admitted this.
"I know not what I have done that a son of mine should bring such shame and sorrow to my old age. It is the influence of the world's people whose licentious teachings corrupt even the most steadfast of our youth. We came here—to this lonely place—to get away from the world's people. They thicken about us now, these worldlings; hence I favor another journey into a far wilderness where we can live at peace, shut away from the contamination of these greedy and blasphemous idolators."
All realized that he spoke in anger as well as in sorrow, and the more candid and cool-headed of the Friends deplored his words, for they had long since determined that the world's forces must be met and endured; but Jacob Farnum was quick to declare himself.