Conflicts and Victory
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carriage; so on our return they took my husband to Ionia and purchased
the one we now have. This was just what we needed and would have
saved me much weariness in traveling in the heat of summer.
At this time we received earnest requests to attend the convocation
meetings in the West. As we read these touching appeals we wept over
them. My husband would say to me, “Ellen, we cannot attend these
meetings. At best I could hardly take care of myself on such a journey,
and should you faint, what could I do? But, Ellen, we must go;” and as
he would thus speak, his tearful emotions would choke his utterance.
In return, while pondering on our feeble condition, and the state of the
cause in the West, and feeling that the brethren needed our labors, I
would say: “James, we cannot attend these meetings in the West—but
we must go.” At this point, several of our faithful brethren, seeing
our condition, offered to go with us. This was enough to decide the
matter. In our new carriage we left Greenville August 29 to attend the
general gathering at Wright. Four teams followed us. The journey was
a comfortable one and very pleasant in company with sympathizing
brethren. The meeting was one of victory.
September 7 and 8 we enjoyed a precious season at Monterey with
the brethren of Allegan County. Here we met Brother Loughborough,
who had begun to feel the wrongs existing in Battle Creek and was
mourning over the part he had acted in connection with these wrongs,
which had injured the cause and brought cruel burdens upon us. By
our request he accompanied us to Battle Creek. But before we left
Monterey, he related to us the following dream:
“When brother and sister white came to monterey, September 7,
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they requested me to accompany them to battle creek. I hesitated
about going, thinking that it might be duty to still follow up the interest
in monterey and thinking, as I expressed to them, that there was but
little opposition to them in battle creek. After praying over the matter
several days, I retired one evening anxiously soliciting the Lord for
light in the matter.
“I dreamed that I, with a number of others, members of the Battle
Creek Church, was on board a train of cars. The cars were low—I
could hardly stand erect in them. They were ill-ventilated, having an
odor as though they had not been ventilated for months. The road over
which they were passing was very rough, and the cars shook about at a
furious rate, sometimes causing our baggage to fall off, and sometimes