If she quailed at her own speech, the grief of the young Quaker was more
obvious. He put up his hands as if in fear that she should add to her
sin by repeating her words. Quiet as was his demeanour, the emotional
side of his nature had evidently been deeply wrought upon to-day, for
when he tried to speak to reprove her, grief choked his utterance. It
was not at that time a strange thing for men under the influence of
religious convictions to weep easily. On the contrary, it was accounted
by evangelists a sign of great grace; but Susannah, accustomed only to
the reserve of English gentlemen and her uncle's stern Puritan
self-repression, seeing this young Quaker weep for her sake, was greatly
touched. She became possessed by an excited desire to console him.
The young man turned, weeping as he went, into a little wood that here
bordered the road. Susannah followed, full of ruth, thinking that he
merely sought temporary shade.
They had proceeded under the trees a few paces when Emma Smith came up
from the bank of the river to meet them. Halsey controlled himself and
spoke to Emma.
"She has refused. For this time she has rejected the truth."
Now to Susannah the matter for amazement was that she had come so far
from home (although, it was not very far), that she had actually
arrived, as it seemed, at an appointed place. The sting that this gave
to her pride was greatly eased by perceiving that she had not by this
fulfilled his hopes.
Emma Smith had a pale, patient face, which was at this time made
peculiarly dignified by a look of solemn excitement. Young as she was,
she turned to Susannah with a protecting motherly air.
"Perhaps next time the opportunity is offered the young lady will
embrace it and save her soul." She spoke consolingly to Halsey, but
looked at Susannah with encouraging and respectful eyes. "You will see
this young man baptized?" she asked.
Under the protection of Emma Smith, Susannah stooped under the willow
boughs and found herself upon the bank of the river in the presence of
Joseph Smith, his mother, and some half-dozen men.
Lucy Smith was muttering somewhat concerning a vision of angels, and the
suppressed excitement of them all was manifest. Susannah was infected by
it; she was now tremulous and eager to see what was to be seen.
Joseph Smith advanced into the flowing river and stood in a pool where
the water was well up to his thighs. Standing thus, he began to speak in
the same formal tone and with the same solemn expression that Susannah
had marked when he spoke the revelation concerning herself, but more
loudly. "Behold! we have gathered together according to the revelation
which has been given to me--"
Here a dark young man called Oliver Cowdery groaned and said "Amen." A
tremble of excitement went through the group upon the shore.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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