第19章 CHAPTER IV.(6)

"Mamma, you did not send me any money, and the Doctor and nurse seemed dissatisfied, so I took most of my clothes down to a soup house and pawned them, that the woman may give me a room and soup until I could hear from you."

This was horrible to think of. I had sent her money, but like some others, Charlien never knew the value of money. I had her on my lap and we were crying together. Just to think, in ten minutes more my child might have been gone, and I might not have found her for some time. Her mouth was opened half an inch, and as she talked, I noticed that the side of her face the jaw bone had been taken from, was moving as she chewed a piece of gum. I placed my hands on each side of her face and said: "Now chew, Well, this is just like God; he has not only opened your mouth, but has given you a new jaw bone. My darling you know that the bone from this side was taken out." "Yes", she said, "I told Dr. Mears that, but he said it could not be."

I told him I saw the bone and teeth that were taken out. So in answer to prayer, God had wrought this miracle.

I stayed there six weeks with her, She went to see the doctor three times a week. He used a pry to open her jaws, which was very painful to her but she gradually grew better. We were so happy in each other's society.

I took her every place to see sights in that grand, philanthropic city. I believe Philadelphia, "Brotherly Love," has more evidence of the meaning of the name than any city I have ever seen. The "Breakfast Association" for redeemed men has no equal in its Christ-like work. When I left New York for Kansas, I bought two tickets, one from New York to Chicago and another one from there on. When I went to check my trunk I found one ticket was gone. I had only about three or four dollars, not enough to get me another ticket. This was at Fulton Ferry. I turned and walked out going toward the elevated road, looking as I went for my ticket. Was praying God to help me find it. I walked about the streets as if in a dream. Wishing to learn where I was, I crossed the street to ask a policeman. Seeing a paper at his feet I picked it up and it was my lost ticket. Joshua made the sun stand still by prayer. Elijah closed the heavens from raining on the earth and raised the dead. It is not strange that God should answer my prayer in this case.

In six weeks I returned home leaving Charlien, who went to Vermont to visit some of her father's relatives, the Gloyds. She was gone six months, came home and married and continued to live in Richmond, Texas. For a year she and her husband lived with me; also Mr. Nation's daughter, Lola, was married and living with me, and mother Gloyd, now eighty-six years old, was there. My cares now were so heavy many times that I could not attend religious worship as I wished. Sunday morning I frequently gathered my servants in the dining-room, and there we read and studied the Bible. I had great heaviness of heart, because I had no time to meditate and study the Scriptures. I saw I was only living to feed the perishing bodies of men and women. I would frequently go upstairs and prostrate myself on the floor, crying to God for deliverance from my present surroundings, telling Him over and over, "if he would free me I would do for Him what he couldn't get anyone else to do." How literally this has been fulfilled, for God held me to my vow, and what Carry A.

Nation has done is what no one else has; not only in the instance of smashing saloons, but in every other work. My life beyond dispute has been marvelous and no one that will stop to consider but will know and must admit that an unseen power, one super-human, has upheld me, "not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord."