At first he had been greeted only with derision or pelted with mud, but in the last few days he had made and baptized converts, and now the fury of the other sects was at white heat.
Susannah's mind swiftly sifted out the improbabilities from Rigdon's wrathful tale.
"But the people that gather to such meetings as Mr.Finney holds are for the most part awaked, for the time at least, to a higher Christian life.

It cannot be they who have used the vile language that you repeat." She almost felt the disagreeable heat of Rigdon's breath as he threw out in answer stories of coarse and brutal insult which had been heaped upon himself and Smith.

The large animal nature of this man always annoyed her.

There was much of breath in his words, much of physical sensation always clinging to his thoughts.

At present, however, she was not inclined to judge him too hardly; although visibly unstrung, unwise in his sweeping condemnation, coarse in his anger, and somewhat grandiloquent in his pose, there was still much of real heroism in his mental attitude.