The Hope pioneer. [volume] (Hope, N.D.) 1882-1964, 1907-01-17
It would nave been wicked TO

crops. IL would nave been wicked TO
doubt"
He quickly detected her insincerity,
seeing that she did not at all. believe.
AS the summer came and went with
out a sign from the heavens, she be-
came Q positive and more constant
in these assurances. AS the evening
drew on, they would walk out along
the unsown fields, now grown rankly
to weeds, to where the valley fell
away from their feet to the west.
There they could look over line after
line of hills, each a little DINNER as
it lay farther into the blue through
which they saw it, from the bold rim
of the nearest shaggy-sided hill to the
farthest feathery profile allSbut lost in
the haze. Day after gay rney sat to-
gether here and waited for the sign,
for the going down of the sun upon
q night when there should be no dark
ness; when the light should stay until
the sun came back oye the eastern
verge; when the trumpet should wind
through the hills, and when the little
mans perplexities, if not his punish
ment, should be at an end.
His hope lasted hardly until the
year ended. Before the time was over,
there had crept into his mind a CON
viction that the Son of Man would not
come; that the Lords favor had been
withdrawn from Israel. He knew the
cause.-The shedding of innocent
blood. They might have made war;
i S~doo1 q a a 3 re tho rouo1ot;o-o rs
Joseph Disseminated even between
murder and that murder in which
innocent blood should be shed; but
the truth was plain. They had shed
innocent blood that day in the Mead
ows. Now the Lords favor was with
drawn and His coming deferred, per-
haps another thousand years. The
torture of the thing came back to him
with all it's early coloring, SO that his
days and nights were full of anguish.
He no longer dared open the Bible to
that Redeemed page. The cries al
ready rang in his ears, and he knew
not what worse torture might come if
he looked again upon the stain; nor
could he free himself from these by
LAC O4O lOApOOAOAI - pAoyOl, " LC
could no longer pray with an honest
heart; he was no longer u~nselfish.
could no longer kneel in perfect sub
mission; he was wholly bound to this
child of her mother, and the peace Of
absolute and utter sacrifice could not
come back to him. Full of unrest,
feeling that somehow the end, at least
for him, could not be far off, he went
north to the April Conference. He
took Prudence with him, not daring
to leave her behind.
She went with high hopes, alive
with new sensations. Another world
lay outside her valley of the noun
tains, and she was going to peep owe
the edge at it's manifold destinations.
She had been there before as a child;
now she was going as a woman. She
remembered the city, bigger and
grander than fifty Amalons, with mag
nff1cent stores filed with exotic nov
elites and fearsome ~luxuries from the
land of the wicked Gentle.
More fondly did she recall two won.
derful evenings at the theater. First
had been the thrilling Robert Ma
caire," then the romantic "Pizarro,"
in which Rolla had been a being Of
such overwhelming beauty that she
had felt he could not be of earth.
This time her v'.it was an endless
fever of discovery in a realm of magic
} and mystery, of joys she had supposed
were held in reserve for those who
), went behind the veil. It was a new
r and greater city she. came to now,
where were buildings Of undreamed
splendor, many of them reaching diz-
lilly three stories above the earth.
: And the shops were more fascinating
4 than ever. She still shuddered at the
wickedness of the Gentiles, but with a
certain secret respect for their habits
of luxury and their p%rofusion of de-
vices for adornment.
And there were strange new faces
to be seen, people surely of a different
world, of a different name from
those she had known, wearing, with
apparent carelessness, garments even
more strangely elegant than those in
the shop windows, and speaking in
strange, soft accents. She was told
that these were Gentiles, tourists
across the continent, who had ven;
!, tured from Ogden to observe the won
ders of the new Zion. The thought of
the railroad was in itself thrilling. To
, be SO near that wonderful highway to
: the land of the %evil-doers n to a
: land, alas! of SO many strange de-
lights. She shuddered at her own
%wickedness, but fell again and again,
and was held in bondage by the al
t lurements about her. So thrilled to
her souls center was she that the
: pleasure of it hurt her, and the tears
would come to her eyes until she felt
! she must be alone to cry for the awful
joy Of it.
9 The evening brought still 0 to
i endure, for they went to the play. 1t
Q was a play that took her u OF her-
!. self, so that the crowd was lost to her
t from the moment the curtain went up
Q in obedience to a little bell that tin
kled mysteriously, either back on the