Conflicts and Victory
557
It seemed impossible for me to stand before the people. When my
husband asked what subject I would speak upon, I could not gather
or retain a sentence in my mind. But I thought: If God will have me
speak, He will surely strengthen me; I will venture by faith; I can but
fail. I staggered to the tent with a strangely confused brain, but told the
preaching brethren on the stand that if they would sustain me by their
prayers, I would speak. I stood before the people in faith, and in about
five minutes my head and lungs were relieved, and without difficulty I
spoke more than one hour to fifteen hundred eager listeners. After I
ceased speaking, a sense of the goodness and mercy of God came over
me, and I could not forbear rising again and relating my sickness and
the blessing of God which had sustained me while speaking. Since
that meeting my lungs have been greatly relieved, and I have been
improving in health.
In the West we met reports amounting to little less than slander
against my husband. These were current at the time of the General
Conference, and were carried to all parts of the field. I will state one
as a sample. It was said that my husband was so crazy for money that
he had engaged in selling old bottles. The facts are these: When we
were about to move, I asked my husband what we should do with a
lot of old bottles on hand. Said he: “Throw them away.” Just then our
Willie came in and offered to clean and sell them. I told him to do
so, and he should have what he could get for them. And when my
husband rode to the post office, he took Willie and the bottles into the
carriage. He could do no less for his own faithful little son. Willie
sold the bottles and took the money. On their way to the post office
my husband took a brother connected with the Review office into the
carriage, who conversed pleasantly with him as they rode to and from
town, and because he saw Willie come out to the carriage and ask his
father a question relative to the value of the bottles, and then saw the
druggist in conversation with my husband relative to that which so
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much interested Willie, this brother, without saying one word to my
husband about the matter, immediately reported that Brother White
had been downtown selling old bottles and therefore must be crazy.
The first we heard about the bottles was in Iowa, five months after.
These things have been kept from us so that we could not correct
them, and have been carried, as on the wings of the wind, by our pro-
fessed friends. And we have been astonished to find, by investigation