floppin'."

Elder Wessel wuz took completely back, I could see, by Arvilly's
eloquence, and I wuz myself. The sharp-toothed harrow of grief had
turned up new furrows in her soul, in which strange plants growed. And
before Elder Wessel could speak she went on a-thinkin' back about
sunthin' he'd said.

"Indulgences to sin! If I granted licenses for all kinds of sin for
money, as our nation duz, I wouldn't talk about Papal indulgences. See
how wimmen are used--embruted, insulted, ground beneath the heel of
lust and ruin by these same license laws."

"But, Sister Arvilly," sez he, "I was reading only this morning a
sermon upon how much our civilization had to do in lifting women into
the high place they occupy to-day."

"High place!" sez Arvilly, and I fairly trembled in my shoes to hear
her axent. "Wimmen occupy a dretful high place. I can tell you jest
the place she occupies. You have been told of it often enough; you ort
to know it, but don't seem to. A woman occupies the same bench with
lunatics, idiots and criminals, only hern is enough sight harder under
legal licenses and taxation laws."

"But," sez the Elder, "the courtesy with which women are treated, the
politeness, the deference----"

"If you wuz kicked out of your meetin' house, Elder Wessel, would it
make any difference to you whether the shue you wuz kicked with wuz
patent leather or cowhide? The important thing to you would be that
you wuz layin' on the ground outside, and the door locked behind
you."

Sez Elder Wessel, "That is a strong metafor, Sister Arvilly. I had
never looked at it in that light before."

"I presume so," sez she. "The very reason why there are so many
cryin' abuses to-day is because good men spend their strength in
writin' eloquent sermons aginst sin, and lettin' it alone, instead
of grapplin' with it at the ballot box. Our Lord took a whip and
scourged the money changers out of the temple. And that is what
ministers ort to do, and have got to do, if the world is saved
from its sins--scourge the money changers who sell purity and honor,
true religion and goodness for money.

"Satan don't care how much ministers talk about temperance and
goodness and morality in the pulpit to a lot of wimmen and children
that the congregations are made up of mostly, or how many essays are
writ about it, tied with blue ribbin. But when ministers and church
members take hold on it as Ernest White has and attacks it at the
ballot box, and defend