He dassent say it agin. He dast as well die as to say it. I s’pose, in fact I know, from my feelin’s which I was a feelin’, that my mean was awfuler and more majesticker than it had been for years and years.
Says he, “As it were—” and then he stopped short off, seemin’ly to collect his thoughts together, and then he kinder coughed, and begun agin— “And so forth, and so on,” says he. He acted fairly afraid. And I don’t wonder at it a mite. My looks must have been awful, and witherin’ in the extreme.
But finally he says, “We read of this sect in the Bible, anyway. The Essenes was Mormons, or sort o’ Mormony,” says he, glancin’ at me and then at the teakettle, in a sort of a fearful way.
But says I, coldly, “We read in the Bible of droves of swine that was full of evil spirits; and we read in it of lunaticks, and barren fig-trees, and Judas, and the—the David—callin’ him David, as a Methodist and member of the meetin’-house, who does not want to say Satan if she can possibly help it.
“Now,” says I, “you have brought up every commandment of God, and I have preached on ’em, and you find every one of ’em is aginst you—the old law, and the divine new law made manifest in Christ. Now,” says I, coolly, leanin’ back in my chair, full of martyrdom and eloquence and victory and everything, “bring on your next argument, bring it right here, and let me lay holt of it, and vanquish it, and overthrow it”
“Wall,” says he, “I hold that the perfect faith that thousands have in our religion and its founder, is one of the very strongest proofs of its divine origin.”
“I don’t think so,” says I. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, but things don’t always turn out to be what you hoped they was. Now, there is hash, for instance: and in order to enjoy hash, you have got to have perfect confidence in it and its maker. But still you may have that perfect confidence in it, and eat it in faith, believin’ it is good beef and pork, while at the same time there may be ingredients in it that you know not of, such as Skotch snuff, lily white, hairpins, and etcetery. Hash is a great mystery, and often deceivin’ to the partaker, no matter how strong his faith in it may be.
“And I might foller up this strikin’ simely of hash into other eloquent metafors, such as pills, preachin’, wimmen’s complexion, and etcetery. Some is good and true, and some hain’t good and true, but they all find somebody to believe in ’em.
“This is a very deep subject, and solemn, if handled solemnly. I have handled it only in a light parable way, showin’ that them that do honestly believe in this Mormon doctrine, if there are any, are partakin’ (unbeknown to them) of a hash that is full of abomination and uncleanness, full of humiliation, sorrow, and degradation. Oh!” says I, fallin’ back on the side of the subject nearest to my heart, “when I think of the woes of my sect there in Utah, I feel feelin’s that never can be told or sung. No, there never could be a tune made mournful and solemn enough to sing ’em in.”
Says he, bold as brass, and not thinkin’ how he was a wobblin’ round in his argument, “They enjoy it.”