Chapter 47—In Confirmation of Confidence
During the summer of 1890, Mrs. White devoted much of her
time to writing. In October she was urged to attend general meetings
in Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, and Maryland. After a few
days spent in Adams Center, N. Y., she attended a general meeting
at South Lancaster, Mass. On the journey from South Lancaster to
Salamanca, N. Y., she caught a severe cold, and found herself at the
beginning of the Salamanca meeting much wearied as the result of the
ten days of arduous labor at South Lancaster, and heavily burdened
with hoarseness and a sore throat.
About two hundred had assembled from all parts of Pennsylvania
and southwestern New York. The meetings were held mostly in the
opera house, but Sabbath afternoon and evening they were held in the
Congregational church. Mrs. White spoke Sabbath afternoon on the
necessity of a greater effort on the part of our churches to cherish faith
and love. Sunday morning she spoke in the opera house. There was
a large audience, filling all the seats and aisles, and crowding about
the platform close to the speaker. Her subject was temperance, and
she dwelt largely upon the duty of parents so to train their children to
habits of fidelity and self-denial, that they need not be overcome when
tempted to drink intoxicating liquors.
After this meeting, Mrs. White was so thoroughly exhausted that
her secretary, Miss Sara McEnterfer, urged her to return to her home
in Battle Creek, and take treatment at the Sanitarium. Elder A. T.
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Robinson, and others interested in the remaining meetings which she
had promised to attend, pleaded that she should not abandon hope for
health and strength to continue her labors.
With great difficulty she filled an appointment Monday afternoon,
and then felt that she must decide what course she should take about
attending the Virginia meeting, which immediately followed.
At the home of Brother Hicks, where she was entertained, she was
visited by an old lady who was violently opposed in her Christian life
by her husband. This interview lasted an hour. After this, weary, weak,
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