“No, for I believe God’s word, ‘the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin’; and its teaching that he is the one sacrifice for sin.”
“And yet you call yourself one of them?”
“I have done so. I stood out against it for a time—in the old home in Scotland—but the man—a Mormon missionary—was very plausible and seemed very devout, quoted Scripture, won Willie, my husband, over first, and they both kept at me till I grew fairly bewildered and half crazed, and at last, when Willie told me he was bound to come over to America and join the Latter-day Saints, I gave up and agreed to do the same; for how could I part from him? and no word at all had been breathed to either of us about polygamy; we had not thought it was one of their doctrines.”
A spasm of pain convulsed her features, and for a moment she seemed unable to go on.
“Does that speak well for their honesty?” he asked, in stern indignation.
She shook her head. “No,” she said chokingly; “and the thought of that has sometimes made me grow weak in the faith till my heart would almost stand still with fright.”
The last words were spoken in a suppressed tone, little louder than a whisper, and with a half-terrified glance from side to side, as if she feared they might be overheard.
“And no wonder, considering their fiendish practice of ‘blood atonement,’” he responded, regarding the poor, trembling woman with deep commiseration. “I presume you had not been long a dweller in Mormondom before you were more fully instructed in regard to those two important doctrines?”
“No, sir, not long,” she replied, “as to polygamy at least; and when my husband declared his intention of carrying that into practice, I was heart-broken and entreated him to forbear, remembering his solemn marriage vow to cleave to me only so long as we both should live.
“He tried argument with me at first, coaxing and persuasion, but finding I was not to be moved by those, he grew very angry and abusive, and hinted darkly at the danger of the blood atonement doctrine being carried out in my case if I continued obstinate in refusing my consent.”