Sketch of Experience
529
the time, and then speak about an hour and a half in the afternoon of
each day. We were listened to with the greatest attention. I saw that
my husband was growing stronger, clearer, and more connected in his
subjects. And when on one occasion he spoke one hour with clearness
and power, with the burden of the work upon him as when he used to
speak, my feelings of gratitude were beyond expression. I arose in the
congregation and for nearly half an hour tried with weeping to give
utterance to them. The congregation felt deeply. I felt assured that this
was the dawn of better days for us.
We remained with this people six weeks. I spoke to them twenty-
five times, and my husband twelve times. As our labors with this
church progressed, individual cases began to open before me, and I
commenced to write out testimonies for them, amounting in all to one
hundred pages. Then commenced labor for these persons as they came
to Brother Root’s, where we were stopping, and with some of them at
their homes, but more especially in meetings at the house of worship.
In this kind of labor I found that my husband was a great help. His
long experience in this kind of work, as he had labored with me in the
past, had qualified him for it. And now that he entered upon it again
he seemed to manifest all that clearness of thought, good judgment,
and faithfulness in dealing with the erring, of former days. In fact, no
other two of our ministers could have rendered me the assistance that
he did.
A great and good work was done for this dear people. Wrongs
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were freely and fully confessed, union was restored, and the blessing
of God rested down upon the work. My husband labored to bring up
the systematic benevolence of the church to the figures which should
be adopted in all our churches, and his efforts resulted in raising the
amount to be paid into the treasury annually by that church about three
hundred dollars. Those in the church who had been in trial about some
of my testimonies, especially respecting the dress question, became
fully settled on hearing the matter explained. The health and the dress
reform were adopted, and a large amount was raised for the Health
Institute.
Here I think it my duty to state that as this work was in progress,
unfortunately a wealthy brother from the State of New York visited
Wright after calling at Battle Creek and there learning that we had
started out contrary to the opinion and advice of the church and those