This is but one illustration of a sort of thing of which I could cite a hundred.  The city in which I live is headquarters of another sect, the “Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene”; primitive Methodists, Bible-worshippers not content with the King James version, but going back to the Sinaitic Ms. They have a “University”, located in one of the most beautiful spots that Nature ever made; an institution with seventy-five students.  A couple of years ago I happened to meet the “president,” who was a preacher with grease on the ample expanse of his black broadcloth waistcoat, and a speech full of the commonest grammatical errors, such as “you was” and “I seen”.  The past year witnessed a split, and the founding of a brand new church and “University”—­because one of the preachers insisted upon preaching so much that the students got no chance to study; also because he sent home a rich man’s daughter whose shirt-waists revealed too much of her fleshly nature.

And there is an even stranger phenomenon in the locality, taking you back to the Libyan desert and the time of Thais.  A lady friend of mine, generously blessed with this world’s goods, asks me have I seen the hermit.  “Hermit?” I say, and she replies, “Didn’t you know there was a hermit?  He lives on a mountain, in a cave, and never has anything to do with the world.  He has no books; he contemplates spiritually.”  I picture my friend with her large limousine, a rolling palace full of ladies, drawing up at the door of this hermit’s cave.  “He received you?” I ask.  “Yes, he was quite polite.”  “And what was your impression of him?” “Oh, how he stank!” I answer that this is the odor of sanctity, and my friend thinks that I am enormously witty; I have to explain to her that I am not jesting, but that there are definite physiological phenomena incidental to the ecstatic life.

#The Book of Mormon#

Or let us take a trip to Salt Lake City, the headquarters of a still stranger cult.

On the morning of the 22nd of September, 1827, the Angel of the Lord delivered unto Joseph Smith, Jr., an ignorant farmer-youth in a “backwoods” part of New York State, some plates which had “the appearance of gold”.  As we know from the scriptures, it is the habit of the Angel of the Lord to appear in unexpected places and to make miraculous revelations to men in humble walks of life; so, as devout believers, we hold ourselves in readiness.  In this case the plates were written in “reformed Egyptian”; but the Angel thoughtfully provided Joseph Smith, Jr., with Urim and Thummim, two magic stones with which to read the records.  They proved to deal with a mystery which has haunted the minds of Bible students for centuries—­the fate of the “lost ten tribes of Israel”, who were now revealed to have been the ancestors of the American Indians.  The Angel told Smith to found a new religion, and gave him prophecies concerning things in general; so, on the 6th of April, 1830,