“I think you are accusing yourself unjustly, my dear madam,” he said, in pitying tones; “you are mistaking God-implanted feelings for the suggestions of the evil one.”
“Alas, no!” she sighed. “Has not God given a new revelation to his prophet, ordaining that ‘it is the duty of every woman to give other wives to her husband, even as Sara gave Hagar to Abram, and that if she refuses it shall be lawful for the husband to take them without her consent, and she shall be destroyed for her disobedience’?”
“No,” returned the captain, and there was stern indignation in his tone—not against the poor, deluded woman, but toward her base deceivers—“a thousand times, no! any pretence to a new revelation, no matter by whom it may be set up, must be a base fabrication. Listen!—”
“Ah, sir, you mean kindly,” she said, “but I must not listen to you, for I perceive—what I had already suspected—that you are not one of the saints; that you do not believe the teachings of the new gospel.”
“New gospel!” he exclaimed, his eyes kindling. “Tell me, Mrs. McAlpine, were you not brought up to believe the Bible?” taking out a pocket edition constantly carried with him, as he spoke.
“Surely, sir, and I may say with the Psalmist, ‘Unless thy law had been my delights, I should then have perished in mine affliction.’”
He opened his Bible, and turning to the first chapter of Galatians, read aloud: “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel; which is not another; but there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
“But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.”
“Could anything be plainer or stronger than that?” he asked, with emphasis.
“No,” she said slowly, looking like one waking from a dream. “Why have I not remembered those words before? But—there has been a new revelation; at least, they told me so.”