"You associate with a people known everywhere as the scum of the earth,"
snapped the sister, as she stood in front of him. "You are disgracing
us--the whole Bogstad family--you--but what's the use of talking to
you."
"Not a bit of use that way, dear sister. Suppose you answer some of my
questions. You accuse, but never bring proof. You would rather believe
uninformed people than me. You accept hearsay, but will not listen to
the truth I wish to tell you. I have asked you to point out some of the
bad things taught by the Latter-day Saints, but so far you have never
tried. I have invited you to go with me--"
"Do you think I would thus disgrace myself to appear in their meetings!"
"You will not even read a simple tract; you close your eyes and ears.
You push God from you when you say that He does not reveal Himself any
more; and so does Pastor Tonset and all his followers. Because I am
willing to receive light, even though it comes from a 'sect everywhere
spoken against,' I am a bad man. I tell you, my sister, and also you, my
mother, I may be looked upon as a disgrace to the Bogstad family, but
the time will come when you and all that family will thank the Lord that
one member of the family heard the truth, and had courage enough to
accept it!"
Selma walked to the door, and now passed out without replying. Henrik
sat down by his mother, and the two continued to converse in low, quiet
tones.
The mother's hair was white, the face pinched from much suffering, the
hands shrunken. Selma's talk disturbed her, as did that of a score or
more of interested relatives; but when she talked with Henrik alone she
was at peace, and she listened quietly to what he told her. She was so
old and weak and traditionated in the belief of her fathers that she
could grasp but feebly the principles taught her by Henrik; but this she
knew, that there was something in his tone and manner of speech that
soothed her and drove away the resentment and hardness of heart left by
the talk of others.
"You know, mother," Henrik was saying, "this restored gospel answers so
many of life's perplexing questions. It is broad, full of common sense,
and mercy. Father, as you well know, was not a religious man. When he
died, Pastor Tonset gave it as his opinion that father was a lost
soul--"
"Father was a good man."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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