Elder Wessel wuz took completely back, I could see, by Arvilly’s eloquence, and I wuz myself. The sharp-toothed harrow of grief had turned up new furrows in her soul, in which strange plants growed. And before Elder Wessel could speak she went on a-thinkin’ back about sunthin’ he’d said.
“Indulgences to sin! If I granted licenses for all kinds of sin for money, as our nation duz, I wouldn’t talk about Papal indulgences. See how wimmen are used––embruted, insulted, ground beneath the heel of lust and ruin by these same license laws.”
“But, Sister Arvilly,” sez he, “I was reading only this morning a sermon upon how much our civilization had to do in lifting women into the high place they occupy to-day.”
“High place!” sez Arvilly, and I fairly trembled in my shoes to hear her axent. “Wimmen occupy a dretful high place. I can tell you jest the place she occupies. You have been told of it often enough; you ort to know it, but don’t seem to. A woman occupies the same bench with lunatics, idiots and criminals, only hern is enough sight harder under legal licenses and taxation laws.”
“But,” sez the Elder, “the courtesy with which women are treated, the politeness, the deference–––”
“If you wuz kicked out of your meetin’ house, Elder Wessel, would it make any difference to you whether the shue you wuz kicked with wuz patent leather or cowhide? 135 The important thing to you would be that you wuz layin’ on the ground outside, and the door locked behind you.”
Sez Elder Wessel, “That is a strong metafor, Sister Arvilly. I had never looked at it in that light before.”
“I presume so,” sez she. “The very reason why there are so many cryin’ abuses to-day is because good men spend their strength in writin’ eloquent sermons aginst sin, and lettin’ it alone, instead of grapplin’ with it at the ballot box. Our Lord took a whip and scourged the money changers out of the temple. And that is what ministers ort to do, and have got to do, if the world is saved from its sins––scourge the money changers who sell purity and honor, true religion and goodness for money.
“Satan don’t care how much ministers talk about temperance and goodness and morality in the pulpit to a lot of wimmen and children that the congregations are made up of mostly, or how many essays are writ about it, tied with blue ribbin. But when ministers and church members take hold on it as Ernest White has and attacks it at the ballot box, and defends and reinforces the right and left flank with all the spiritual and material and legal forces he can muster, why then Satan feels his throne tremble under him and he shakes in his shues.”
But before Elder Wessel could frame a reply Josiah come in with the news that the steamer had approached and brung mail to the passengers. And we all hurried up to see what we had got.