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Testimonies for the Church Volume 1
topics, but my ears were deaf to everything but the praise of God, and
their words came to me as grateful thanks and glad hosannas. Turning
to my mother, I said: “Why, these men are all praising God, and they
haven’t been to the camp meeting.” I did not then understand why the
tears gathered in my mother’s eyes, and a tender smile lit up her face,
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as she listened to my simple words that recalled a similar experience
of her own.
My mother was a lover of flowers and took much pleasure in
cultivating them and thus making her home attractive and pleasant for
her children. But our garden had never before looked so lovely to me
as upon the day of our return. I recognized an expression of the love of
Jesus in every shrub, bud, and flower. These things of beauty seemed
to speak in mute language of the love of God.
There was a beautiful pink flower in the garden called the rose of
Sharon. I remember approaching it and touching the delicate petals
reverently; they seemed to possess a sacredness in my eyes. My heart
overflowed with tenderness and love for these beautiful creations of
God. I could see divine perfection in the flowers that adorned the earth.
God tended them, and His all-seeing eye was upon them. He had made
them and called them good.
“Ah,” thought I, “if He so loves and cares for the flowers that He
has decked with beauty, how much more tenderly will He guard the
children who are formed in His image.” I repeated softly to myself: “I
am a child of God, His loving care is around me. I will be obedient
and in no way displease Him, but will praise His dear name and love
Him always.”
My life appeared to me in a different light. The affliction that had
darkened my childhood seemed to have been dealt me in mercy for
my good, to turn my heart away from the world and its unsatisfying
pleasures, and incline it toward the enduring attractions of heaven.
Soon after our return from the camp meeting, I, with several others,
was taken into the church on probation. My mind was very much ex-
ercised on the subject of baptism. Young as I was, I could see but one
mode of baptism authorized by the Scriptures, and that was immer-
sion. Some of my Methodist sisters tried in vain to convince me that
sprinkling was Bible baptism. The Methodist minister consented to
immerse the candidates if they conscientiously preferred that method,
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