He felt himself wickedly agreeing with a pessimistic elder at Fillmore, who remarked: "I tell you what, Brother Rae, it seems like when the Book of Mormon goes again' the Constitution of the United States, there's sure to be hell to pay, and the Saints allus has to pay it." He could not tell the man in words of fire, as once he would have done, that they had been punished for lack of faith.
Another told him it was madness to have thought they could "whip" the United States.

"Why," said this one, "they's more soldiers back there east of the Missouri than there is fiddlers in hell!" By the orthodox teachings of the time, the good man of Israel had thus indicated an overwhelming host.
He passed sadly on.

They would not understand that they had laid by and forgotten their impenetrable armour of faith.
Between Beaver and Paragonah that day, toiling intently along the dusty road in the full blaze of the August sun, he met a woman,--a tall, strong creature with a broad, kind face, burned and seamed and hardened by life in the open.

Yet it was a face that appealed to him by its look of simple, trusting earnestness.

Her dress was of stout, gray homespun, her shoes were coarse and heavy, and she was bareheaded, her gray, straggling hair half caught into a clumsy knot at the back of her head.
She turned out to pass him without looking up, but he stopped his horse and dismounted before her.