“Was that how you came to emigrate to this country, Marian?” she asked. “Are you and your mother Mormons?”
“I’m no Mormon!” exclaimed the girl, through her clenched teeth. “But they made one of my father, and led him to break my poor mother’s heart, so that I hate him—I that used to love him next to her—and would never set eyes on him again if I could help myself.”
“Hate your own father!” cried Lulu, aghast at the very idea. “Oh, how can you?”
“He isn’t like yours,” Marian returned, in quivering tones: “if he was I’d love the very ground he walks on. He used to be kind, but now—he’s cruel and heartless as—I’d almost said the father o’ lies himself!”
“Oh, Marian, what has he done to grieve your mother so?”
“What the Mormons teach that every man ought to do if he wants a high place in heaven; taken other wives.”
“Why!” exclaimed Lulu, “that’s very, very wicked! They send men to the penitentiary for doing it.”
“They deserve worse than that,” said Marian, her eyes flashing. “I’m no Mormon, I say again. Do you know they teach the women that they can’t go to heaven unless they have been married?”
“I know better than that,” Lulu said emphatically; “for the Bible says ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.’ And I know some very good Christian ladies who have never been married. I don’t see how anybody who believes the Bible can be a Mormon.”
“No, nor I,” said Marian; “for a good many things they say one must believe, are directly the opposite of what the Bible says. For instance, that the blood of Christ doesn’t atone for all sin, but some sins have to be atoned for by shedding the sinner’s own blood. I think that—beside contradicting the Scriptures—it is the same thing as saying that Jesus’ blood is not of sufficient value to pay for all the wickedness men have done, and buy their salvation, if only they choose to accept it as a free gift at his hands, believe in him, and love him with all their hearts, so that they will be his servants forever.”