Fifteen Years with the Outcast | Page 4

ready to answer our questions, comforting when sorrowful, healing when sick, warning when in danger, ever directing, admonishing, and encouraging under any and all circumstances. "Oh!" but you say, "the chastening! You forget that." No, dear one, I do not. All wise parents chasten their offspring. Would to God they would lovingly, wisely administer more corrections than they do. The outcome, I verily believe, would be a wonderful foretaste of heaven on earth. But I find I am digressing.
Immediately following my conversion came the desire to impart the knowledge received, to my friends and neighbors. The result was that a report somewhat like the following was soon circulated: "Poor Mrs. Roberts! Have you heard the news? Her husband's financial losses have affected her mind; she is going crazy. Thinks she had a vision!" etc. Then I began to realize what it means literally to "forsake all to follow Christ." Heavier troubles followed, but they did not affect me as heretofore. I had had the vision, and it had come to stay.
Illness presently brought me to the very threshold of eternity. With animation temporarily suspended, but my soul and brain never more keenly alive, I mentally implored the dear Lord to spare me for a little while, because I did not now want to come to him empty-handed. Oh! the longing to win souls, as I lay there helpless yet realizing what it might mean to be forever debarred from the things which God had prepared from the foundation of the world "for him that waiteth for Him" (Isa. 64:4). How eager I was to tell the news to any one, no matter to what depths he or she might have fallen! It was the immortal soul that I was now anxious to reach. Lying there, I made an absolute consecration, promising my heavenly Father that if he would restore me to health and strength, I would go to whatever place he thought fit to send me, and never hesitate to stoop to the lowliest for his sake and theirs.
RESTORATION.
God takes us at our word. I wonder how many of us realize this?
Returning health and strength found me located with my family in Redding, Shasta County. Here my husband and I, in the spring of 1897, followed our Lord's example in baptism.
In Redding came many delightful opportunities to engage in church and personal work for the Master. While I was visiting in Sacramento in the fill of 1897 and attending revival meetings conducted in the First Baptist church, came my first real knowledge of the unfortunate of my sex.
Previous to this revival the Rev. Mr. Banks, now deceased, anxious for these special services to be well attended, asked for volunteers from his flock to distribute in every house in their immediate neighborhoods a printed invitation. Whoever undertook this work was to pledge themselves not to pass one house nor miss any opportunity for personal work. Not two blocks from the place where I was rooming was a district that I hitherto had never explored--in fact, had purposely avoided. God now gave me strength to take up this cross, for which may I be forever humbly grateful. But I shrank at first; for, unable to persuade any of my acquaintances to accompany me, I had to traverse this neighborhood alone. Did I say alone? Never did I experience a greater sense of guardianship, of protection, of being in the best of company, though these guardians and companions were visible only to the eye of faith (Psa. 91:10-12).
That day I saw tears fall, and heard experiences of which I had hitherto had scarcely any conception.
Touched by a loving hand, wakened by kindness, Chords that were broken will vibrate once more.
Soon after this the first little rescue home for girls in Sacramento was started by some consecrated young people. It was located on Second Street near O. I did not have the pleasure of attending the opening of this "shelter," because of a direct call to service about this time with some traveling evangelists. I assisted them by giving out the "good news" in song.
While I was traveling northward with these evangelists, there came into my possession, in answer to prayer, my treasured, God-given little autoharp, No. 1. My second was at one time the property of a now pardoned State prisoner--his companion in his lonely hours when locked in his cell.
"Where were your husband and your son all this time?" you inquire. The former was away prospecting--his favorite occupation. The latter, because of his love for the water and his desire to see other countries, was an employee on an ocean-steamer.
MY SPIRITUAL MOTHER.
On Sept. 1, 1902, there passed into eternal rest one of the oldest members of the First Methodist Episcopal church of San Francisco, Mrs. Salemma Williams.
For more than twenty years this