“I wonder how he would have liked it to have had Charley Lanfear's mother set on him? She is a Sister in the meetin' house and Charley is a ruined boy—and Deacon Widrig is jest as much the cause of his ruin— jest as guilty of murderin' all that wuz sweet and lovely in him es if he had fed arsenic to him with a teaspoon.”
Sez I, “In that very meetin' house to Loontown, there are mothers who have to set and take the bread and wine tokens of the blood and body of their crucified Redeemer from a man's hands that they know are red with the blood of their own sons. Fur redder than human blood and deeper-stained with the ruin of their immortal souls.
“What thoughts does these mothers keep on a-thinkin' as they set there and see a man guilty of worse than murder set up as a example to other young souls? What thoughts do they keep on a-thinkin' of the young hearts that wuz pure before this man laid holt of 'em. Young eyes that wuz true and tender till this man made 'em look on his accursed drink. Young lips that smiled on their mothers till he gin 'em that that changed the smiles to curses?
“Would a delegation of wimmen keep such a man in the meetin' house if he paved the hull floor with fine gold? No, you know they wouldn't. Let a jury of mothers set on such a man, and see if he could get up agin very easy.
“They are the ones who have suffered by him, who have agonized, who went down into deeper than the Valley of Death led by his hand. They went down into that depth where they lose their boy. Lose him eternally.
“Death, jest death, would give 'em a chance to meet their child again. But what hope does a mother have when down in the darkness that has no mornin', her boy tears his hand from her weak grasp and plunges downward?
“How does such a mother feel as she sets there in a still meetin' house, and the man who has done all this passes her the emblems of a deathless love, a divine purity?”
Josiah sat demute and, didn't say nuthin', and I went on, for I wuz very roze up in my mind, and by the side of myself with emotions.
And sez I, “Take the case of Simeon Lathers. Why wuz it that Sister Irene Filkins wuz turned out of the meetin' house and the man who wuz the first cause of her goin' astray kep in—the handsome, smooth-faced hypocrite?—it wuz because he wuz rich as a Jew, and jest plastered over the consciences of them that tried him with his fine speeches and his money.”