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Life Sketches of Ellen G. White
too much exhausted for me to attempt to use hydropathic remedies
in my husband’s case; and we felt that it might be duty to take him
to Dansville, N. Y., where he could rest, and where we could have
the care of those well skilled as hydropathic physicians. We dared
not follow our own judgment, but asked counsel of God, and after
prayerful consideration of the matter, decided to go. My husband
endured the journey well.
We remained in Dansville about three months. We obtained rooms
a short distance from the institution, and were both able to walk out
and be in the open air much of the time. Every day, excepting Sabbath
and first day, we took treatment.
Some may have thought that when we went to Dansville and placed
ourselves under the care of physicians, we had given up our faith that
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God would raise my husband to health in answer to prayer. But not so.
While we did not feel like despising the means that God had placed
in our reach for the recovery of health, we felt that God was above
all, and that He who had provided remedial agencies would have us
use them to assist abused nature to recover her exhausted energies.
We believed that God would bless the efforts we were making in the
direction of health.
Seasons of Prayer and Blessing
Three times a day we had special seasons of prayer for the Lord
to restore my husband to health, and for His special grace to sustain
us in our affliction. These seasons of prayer were very precious to
us. Our hearts were often filled with unspeakable gratitude that in our
affliction we had a heavenly Father in whom we could trust without
fear.
December 4, 1865, my husband passed a restless night of suffering.
I prayed by his bedside as usual, but the Lord was not pleased to send
relief. My husband was troubled in mind. He thought that he might go
down into the grave. He stated that death had no terrors for him.
I felt intensely over the matter. I did not believe for a moment that
my husband would die. But how was he to be inspired with faith? I
prayed God to guide me, and not suffer me to take one wrong step; but
to give me wisdom to choose the right course. The more earnestly I