A word as to the purpose of the "Lions of the Lord;" for Mr. Wilson's performance must be classified with the "purpose novel." Undoubtedly there is such a thing as instructive fiction, and the "purpose novel" has its place as one of the agencies which contribute to the enlightenment of humanity. But if it takes hold of our respect it must be, in harmony with the truth--though fiction, it must speak truly; and keep within the probabilities of the subject in hand. Or, to slightly paraphrase an utterance in Mr. Wilson's preface, if the writer now and again has to divine certain things that do not show--yet must be--surely this must not be less than truth. For a writer of "purpose fiction" to do other than this is to make himself as much liable to censure as the historian who would pervert the truth which he is in honor bound to state whether it fits in with his personal theories or not. In his preface, Mr. Wilson informs us that he designed to make a tale from his observations of western life in Salt Lake and Utah; but in his search for things on which to found his fiction he was so dismayed by facts so much more thrilling than any fiction he might have imagined, that he turned from his first purpose in order "to try to tell what had really been." "In this story then," says he, "the things that are strangest have most truth. The make-believe is hardly more than a cement to join the queerly wrought stones of fact that were found ready." Hence we are to be turned from considering his work as fiction in order to regard it as truth.