"There's that for one thing, Sister Susannah," Smith went on in a broken voice; "it has been a mean sort of thing to have to tell you, but it had to be said, and now there's another thing to be considered. Among the Gentiles who is it that has the most children? Is it your man that's high up in the ranks of society, who has money enough to give them a good education, to feed and clothe 'em? or is it your poor man, whose children run over one another like little pigs in a sty, and he caring nothing for them, and they have rickety bones and are half starved and grow up to be idle and steal? I have noticed that a good man is apt to have good children, and a clever man is apt to have clever children, and a worthless man is apt to have worthless children. Ain't that so? And what sort of children do we want the most of? Well, in this way we wouldn't let your worthless fellow have any wife at all until he had brought forth fruit meet for repentance, and your common man only one; but I don't see but that it would be a real benefit to the State if your good, all-round man, as would be apt to have pious and clever children, had two or three or four families agrowing up to be an honour to him and to the Church, if it ain't against the command of the Lord; and in Holy Writ the Lord himself says to Solomon that he would have given him as many wives as he wanted, barring them being Gentiles." "I will not argue about the Bible; you and I interpret it very differently," she cried. "Your social argument might be well enough if it were not that your good man when he had more than one wife _would cease to be a good man_"--her voice was vibrating with faith--"and his children would therefore have the poorest chance from inheritance or training." He was again pacing, but paused in his ponderous walk, struck by a flaw in his argument which he had not before seen. "But if it were commanded by the Lord, Sister Susannah?" "God does not command this wickedness. What you command in his name is at your own peril, Mr. Smith." He paused before her, asking with reflective curiosity, "Why are you so sure that it would be wickedness, sister?" She had not arguments at command; she held fast to her assurance with the same dogged unreasoning faith with which Ephraim's mother had of old held her belief that this Smith must be an arch-villain; she had put the whole power of her volitionary nature upon the side of faith in the ideal marriage, although she was painfully conscious that she had come across no particle of evidence for the existence of such a state. Out of faith, out of mere instinct of heart, which had not worked itself out in intelligent thought, she gave her unhesitating judgment. "I say that it would be wicked because I _feel_ that it would be wicked; and any good woman," she paused and looked him straight in the eyes, "and any good man, would know its wickedness without arguments, and without weighing all possible considerations."