Struggles with Poverty
87
what he could. We had no means with which to travel. My husband’s
health was poor, but the way opened for him to work in the hayfield,
and he decided to accept the work.
It seemed then that we must live by faith. When we arose in the
morning, we bowed beside our bed, and asked God to give us strength
to labor through the day, and we could not be satisfied without the
assurance that the Lord heard our prayers. My husband then went
forth to swing the scythe in the strength that God gave him. At night
when he came home we would again plead with God for strength with
which to earn means to spread the truth. In a letter to Brother Howland,
written July 2, 1848, he spoke of this experience thus:
“It is rainy today, so that I do not mow, or I should not write. I mow
five days for unbelievers, and Sunday for believers, and rest on the
seventh day, therefore I have but very little time to write.... God gives
me strength to labor hard all day.... Brother Holt, Brother John Belden,
and I have taken one hundred acres of grass to mow, at eighty-seven
and one half cents per acre, and board ourselves. Praise the Lord! I
hope to get a few dollars here to use in the cause of God.”
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