What was to be their fate, they knew not, until the mob began cutting and trimming limbs of trees from four to six feet long, having ugly knots. Soon the Elders were ordered to bend over a fallen log about two feet through, when their doom was made plain to them. They were terribly whipped, receiving lash after lash upon their backs without a question being asked, or an opportunity being afforded to appeal from this inhuman treatment. Occasionally they raise to say a word, but are immediately thrust down again by some of the mob using pistols or clubs. In this way three received severe scalp wounds. The woods resound with the lashes and the groans of the tortured; thirty-five stripes have been laid upon them, when they are requested to leave the country. Too faint to comply, their hesitancy is construed as a refusal, and they are once more belabored with redoubled fury, causing them to cringe beneath the cruel beech-limbs wielded by a sturdy fiend weighing over two-hundred pounds. Fifty stripes each, they received, and yet they had injured no man! How terrible! but it was all for the sake of the gospel. Finally after such torture, they were released, upon promising to leave the country the next day. They returned to their friend and brother! but in what a lacerated condition. They found him sitting in the door bleeding from his wounds. They dressed each other's wounds as best they could, then lay down in troubled rest till morning, when they departed to the place where Elder Durant met them, perhaps never to return. While rehearsing not only his own experience but that of his wounded brothers, no one listened with more marked attention than Claire's husband. From the moment he was introduced to Durant, at the depot, they became very much attached to each other, and, as expressed by Mr. Sutherland, it seemed as if they had always been acquainted. Later, while these two were conversing upon the veranda, Mr. Sutherland interrupted the Elder by asking: "How do you account for the peculiar feelings attending the formation of new friendship, Mr. Durant? Have you not noticed that upon many occasions when introduced to a person, you feel as well acquainted as if you had known him for years?" "Yes," replied Elder Durant, "I have noticed it often, and have frequently wondered if occasions where such feelings are manifested were really the beginning of acquaintance." "I have certainly been very much impressed with this sensation at times when I have been absolutely certain of its being the first meeting," replied Sutherland; "for instance, to be frank, it is the case with you. I am certain beyond question that you and I have never met previous to this day, and yet I followed you while giving the account of your labors and the troubles of your brethren, with as much interest as if you were my own brother; and I have felt all day long that we have always been acquainted."