Paradise Reclaimed Read Online Free PDF Page B

they were getting. But this man was almost greyish-brown in the face, not unlike the colour of glacier-rivers or warmed-up coffee with skimmed milk added. He had a shock of thick, tousled hair, and his clothes were too big for him, but he was no scarecrow for all that.
    And what was this man talking about at Þingvellir near the Öxará out with the official programme for the great national celebrations, when every honest breast in the land was swelling with pride and the hope of better times to come?
    Steinar of Hlíðar asked who this preacher might be, and received the reply that he was a heretic.
    “Oh really?” said Steinar. “I must say I would not mind having a look at such a person. We see many strangers in Steinahlíðar, but most of them seem to have the right ideas about the Almighty. Excuse me, gentlemen, but what is this man’s heresy?”
    “He’s over from America to preach some revelations from a new prophet who opposes Luther and the Pope, some fellow called Joseph Smith, apparently,” said the man Steinar had addressed. “They have several wives. But the authorities have burned all his pamphlets with the revelations in them, and now he’s come to Þingvellir to see the king and get permission to print more heresies. They immerse people.”
    Steinar moved in closer. By this time there was no longer any question of a formal speech being delivered. The stranger’s preaching had so incensed everyone that he was scarcely given time to finish a sentence before the audience were shouting corrections or demanding further explanations. Some were now so impassioned that they could scarcely find words of sufficient abuse to apply to this heretic.
    “What proof does this fellow you mentioned have that people ought to be immersed?” yelled one heckler.
    “Was the Saviour himself not immersed, then?” replied the speaker. “Do you think the Saviour would have let himself be immersed if the Lord had acknowledged child-baptism? In the Bible there was always baptism by immersion. There is no child-baptism in God’s Word, no sirree. It never occurred to anyone to sprinkle water on infants before the third century, at the beginning of the great Apostasy, when unenlightened and ungodly people got the idea of cleansing children who were to be sacrificed to a copper god, yes sirree. They called themselves Christians but they worshipped the fiend Satan. Then the Pope adopted this perversion, of course, like all other heresies; and Luther followed him, even though he boasted he knew better than the Pope.”
    One person asked, “Can Joseph Smith perform miracles?”
    The speaker retorted, “Where are Luther’s miracles? And where are the Pope’s miracles? I’ve never heard anything of them. On the other hand, the whole existence of the Mormons is a miracle, from the moment when Joseph Smith spoke to the Lord for the first time. When did Luther speak to the Lord? When did the Pope speak to the Lord?”
    “God spoke to the Apostle Paul,” said one learned man.
    “Oh, that was rather a brief interview,” replied the speaker. “And God never bothered to give the fellow more than the one audience. On the other hand, the Lord spoke to Joseph Smith not once and not twice and not thrice but one hundred and thirty-three times, not counting the principal revelations themselves.”
    “The Bible is God’s Word here in Iceland,” said the earnest theologian who had spoken previously. But the preacher was quick to reply: “Do you think that God was struck dumb when He had finished dictating the Bible?” he demanded.
    A witty heckler shouted, “Not dumb, perhaps, but at least dumbfounded at the thought that Joseph Smith was going to come along and bastardize it.”
    “Dumb or dumbfounded, I’m not going to argue the point with you, my friend. But I get the impression that you believe that God is utterly silenced? That He has not opened His mouth for nearly two thousand years?”
    “At least I don’t believe that