“It has hanted Samuel, I know it has. Hantin’ me as it has, it must have hanted him fur worse. He has had severe trials, that old gentleman has, and he has needed somebody to hunch him up, and lock arms with him, and draw him along on the path of Right. And I tell you when I talk with him I shan’t spare no pains with him. I shall use my eloquent tone freely. I shan’t be savin’ of gestures or wind. I shall use sharp reason, and, if necessary, irony and sarcasm. And I shall ask him (usin’ a ironicle tone, if necessary) how he thinks it looks in the eyes of the other nations to see him, who ort to be a model for ’em all to foller, allow such iniquity as Mormonism to flourish in his borders. To let a regular organized band of banditty murder and plunder and commit all sorts of abominations right under his honest old nose. And how it must look to them foreign nations to see such a good, moral old gentleman as he is lift his venerable old eyewinker and wink at such crime and sin. How insignificant and humiliatin’ it must look to ’em to see him allow a man in Congress to make laws that will imprison a man for havin’ two wives when the same man has got four of ’em, and is lookin’ round hungry for more.
“And I shall hunch him up sharp about sellin’ licenses to do wrong for money—licenses to make drunkards, and unfit men for earth or heaven—licenses to commit other crimes that are worse—sellin’ indulgences to sin as truly as ever Mr. Pope did.
“I don’t s’pose, in fact, I know, that Sam hain’t never thought it over, and took a solemn, realizin’ sense of how bad he was a cuttin’ up (entirely unbeknown to him). And, if necessary, to convince him and make him see his situation, I shall poke fun at him (in a jokin’ way, so’s not to get him mad). And I shall ask him if he thinks it is any nobler for him to set up in his high chair at Washington and sell indulgences to sin, than it was in Mr. Pope to set up in his high chair in Vatican village and sell ’em.
“And I shall skare him mebby, that is, if I have to, and ask him in a impressive, skareful tone that if he can’t be broke in any other way, if he don’t think he ort to be brought down to a diet of Worms.
“It will go aginst my feelin’s to skare the excellent old gentleman. But I shall feel it to be my duty to not spare no pains. But at the same time I shall be very clever to him. I shall resk it. I don’t believe he will get mad at me. He knows my feelin’s for him too well. He knows there hain’t a old man on the face of the earth I love so devotedly, now father Smith is dead, and father Allen, and all the other old male relatives on my side, and on his’en. I’ll bet a cent I can convince him where he is in the wrong on’t.”
Here I paused for a moment for wind, for truly I was almost completely exhausted. But I was so full and runnin’ over with emotions that I couldn’t stop, wind or no wind. And I went on:
“He hain’t realized, and he won’t, till I go right there and hunch him up about it, how it looks for him to talk eloquent about the sanctity of home. How the household, the Christian home, is the safeguard, the anchor of church and state, and then make his words seem emptier and hollower than a drum, or a hogsit, by allowin’ this sin of Mormonism to undermind and beat down the walls of home.”
And then (this theme always did make me talk beautiful), as I thought of home and Josiah, and the fearful dangers that had threatened ’em both, why, as I thought of this, I begun to feel eloquenter far than I had felt durin’ the hull interview, and I don’t know as the feelin’s I felt then had been gone ahead of by me in five years. Why, I branched out perfectly beautiful, and very deep, and says I:
“Home! The Christian home! The mightiest power on earth for good. Each home seperate and perfect in itself, like the little crystal drops of water, each one on ’em round and complete and all floatin’ on together, unbeknown to them, makin’ a mighty ocian floatin’ right into that serene bay into which all our hopes and life dreams empty. That soundless sea that floats human souls right up to the eternal city.
“The love of parents, wives, and children, like golden rings, bindin’ the hearts to the happy hearth-stone, and then widenin’ out in other golden rings, bindin’ them hearth-stones to loyalty and patriotism, love of country, love of law and order, and love of Heaven, why, them gold rings within rings, they all make a chain that can’t be broke down; they twist all together into a rope that binds this crazy old world to the throne of God.