The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation
to God to save her soul at any cost; I often prayed for bodily affliction on
her, if that was what would make her love and serve God. Anything for
her eternal salvation.
Her right cheek was very much swollen, and on examination we
found there was an eating sore inside her cheek. This kept up in spite of
all remedies, and at last the whole of her right cheek fell out, leaving the
teeth bare. My friends and boarders were very angry at the physician,
saying she was salivated. From the first something told me this is an
answer to your prayer. At this time, when her life was despaired of, I
had an intense longing to save my child, who was so dear to me. I said:
"Oh, God, let me keep a piece of my child." A minister said: "Don't
pray for the life of your child; she will be so deformed it were better she
were dead." I could not feel this way. After being at death's door for
nine days, she began to recover. The wound in her face healed up to a
hole about the size of a twenty-five cent piece. Her jaws closed and
remained so for eight years. The sickness of my daughter and the keeping
up of the hotel was such a tax on my mind, that for six months all
transactions would recede from my memory. For instance, if anyone
told me something, in an hour afterwards, I could not tell whether it
had been hours, days or months since it was told me. I never entirely
recovered from this, still being forgetful of names, dates and circumstances,
unless they are particularly impressed upon my mind. When I could afford
it, I took my child, then twelve years old, down to Galveston, put her
under the care of Dr. Dowell for the purpose of closing the hole in her
cheek. I had to leave the little one down there among strangers, for I
could not afford to stay with her. A mother only will know what this
means. After four operations the place was closed up in her cheek, still
her mouth was closed, her teeth close together. I suffered torture all these
years for fear she might strangle to death. I took her to San
Antonio, Texas, to Dr. Herff, and he and his two sons removed a section
of the jawbone, expecting to make an artificial joint, enabling her to use
the other side of her jaw. After all this, the operation was a failure, and
her jaws closed up again. We, in the meantime, moved to Richmond
from Columbia. We became very successful in the hotel business and I
saved money enough to send her to New York City, where her father, Dr.
Gloyd, had a cousin, Dr. Messinger, who would see that she had the best
relief possible. None of the surgeons there gave her any hope of opening
her jaws. She went to Dr. John Wyeth to have him perform the plastic
surgery; that is, he cut off a flap from under her chin, turning it over the
scar on her cheek.
Although Charlien was not a Christian, she had faith in God. Once
she complained of my being too strict with her, but said: "Mamma I owe
it to you that I have any faith in God, even if you are severe with me."
She always believed that her mother had a God. Finding no physician
in New York that could open her jaws, she wrote me this: "No one but
God can open my mouth, Mamma; ask him to do it." There was a Catholic
woman, Miss Doregan, who boarded with me and had a store around
the corner from the hotel, and I could think of no one else who had as
much faith as this woman. She said she believed that God would heal
my child according to prayer, so I went for seven mornings before breakfast
to this saint of God. She taught me many holy truths and she
explained the Scriptures to me. I learned from her a prayer that we said
in concert, that was written by one of the Old Fathers, and is one of the
most complete in devotion I have ever read. I will record it here:
"Come Holy Ghost send down those beams,
That sweetly flow in silent streams,
From thy bright throne above;
Oh, Come Father of the poor,
Thou bounteous source of all our store;
Come fire our hearts with love.
Come thou of comforters the best,
Come thou the soul's delicious guest,
The pilgrim's sweet relief:
Thou art our rest in toil and sweat,
Refreshment in excessive heat
And solace in our grief.
Oh! sacred light shoot home the darts,
Oh! pierce the center of those hearts
Whose faith aspires to thee.
Without thy God-head nothing can
Have any worth a price in man,
Nothing can harmless be."
"Lord wash our sinful stains away,
Water from heaven our barren clay,
Our wounds and bruises heal.
To thy sweet yoke our stiff necks bow,
Warm with thy fire our hearts of snow,
Our wandering feet repair.
Oh, grant thy faithful dearest Lord,
Whose only hope is thy sure word,
The seven gifts of thy spirit.
Grant us in life to obey thy grace,
Grant us in death to see thy face
And endless joys inherit,
Through the same Christ our Lord."
"Amen."
And now I often use this beautiful and comprehensive petition to my Dear
Lord.
Charlien wrote that she had letters of introduction to a physician in
Philadelphia, Dr. J. Ewing Mears, but in every letter would say: "Keep
on praying." This we did. Oh, the anxiety of my mother heart! My
duties as landlady kept me busy all day and part of the night. I often
had to do my own cooking.
God was good to me and we were very successful financially, and
managed to meet all debts and payments on the property we had purchased.
After I knew the operation had been performed in Philadelphia, I
telegraphed to Charlien. The answer came from the physician: "All
right," but my anxiety was intensified. I became almost wild with anxiety,
and I determined to go to her. I borrowed four hundred dollars from
Alex McNabb, the man she was engaged to, and in three hours I was
on my way to my precious suffering one. As soon as I got on the
train a sense of divine guidance came to me.
When I arrived at the hospital, I had the nurse take me to my child's
room. I cannot describe the meeting. She was packing up her clothes.
I said: "Why are you doing this?" Then she told me this pitiful story:
"Mamma, you did not send me any money, and the Doctor and nurse
seemed dissatisfied, so I took most of my clothes down to a soup house and
pawned them, that the woman may give me a room and soup until I
could hear from you."
This was horrible to think of. I had sent her money, but like some
others, Charlien never knew the value of money. I had her on my lap
and we were crying together. Just to think, in ten minutes more my
child might have been gone, and I might not have found her for some
time. Her mouth was opened half an inch, and as she talked, I noticed
that the side of her face the jaw bone had been taken from, was moving
as she chewed a piece of gum. I placed my hands on each side of
her face and said: "Now chew, Well, this is just like God; he has not
only opened your mouth, but has given you a new jaw bone. My darling
you know that the bone from this side was taken out." "Yes", she said,
"I told Dr. Mears that, but he said it could not be."
I told him I saw the bone and teeth that were taken out. So in answer
to prayer, God had wrought this miracle.
I stayed there six weeks with her, She went to see the doctor three
times a week. He used a pry to open her jaws, which was very painful to her
but she gradually grew better. We were so happy in each other's society.
I took her every place to see sights in that grand, philanthropic city. I
believe Philadelphia, "Brotherly Love," has more evidence of the meaning
of the name than any city I have ever seen. The "Breakfast Association"
for redeemed men has no equal in its Christ-like work. When I left
New York for Kansas, I bought two tickets, one from New York to Chicago
and another one from there on. When I went to check my trunk
I found one ticket was gone. I had only about three or four dollars, not
enough to get me another ticket. This was at Fulton Ferry. I turned and
walked out going toward the elevated road, looking as I went for my
ticket. Was praying God to help me find it. I walked about the streets
as if in a dream. Wishing to learn where I was, I crossed the street to
ask a policeman. Seeing a paper at his feet I picked it up and it was my
lost ticket. Joshua made the sun stand still by prayer. Elijah closed the
heavens from raining on the earth and raised the dead. It is not strange
that God should answer my prayer in this case.
In six weeks I returned home leaving Charlien, who went to Vermont
to visit some of her father's relatives, the Gloyds. She was gone six
months, came home and married and continued to live in Richmond,
Texas. For a year she and her husband lived with me; also Mr. Nation's
daughter, Lola, was married and living with me, and mother Gloyd, now
eighty-six years old, was there. My cares now were so heavy many times
that I could not attend religious worship as I wished. Sunday morning I
frequently gathered my servants in the dining-room, and there we read and
studied the Bible. I had great heaviness of heart, because I had no time
to meditate and study the Scriptures. I saw I was only living to feed
the perishing bodies of men and women. I would frequently go upstairs
and prostrate myself on the floor, crying to God for deliverance from my
present surroundings, telling Him over and over, "if he would free me I
would do for Him what he couldn't get anyone else to do." How literally
this has been fulfilled, for God held me to my vow, and what Carry A.
Nation has done is what no one else has; not only in the instance of smashing
saloons, but in every other work. My life beyond dispute has
been marvelous and no one that will stop to consider but will know
and must admit that an unseen power, one super-human, has upheld me,
"not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord."
CHAPTER V.
THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST.--REJECTED AS A BIBLE TEACHER IN
METHODIST AND EPISCOPALIAN CHURCHES.--TAUGHT IN HOTEL DINING-ROOM.--
VISION, WARNING AND BLESSING.--ENTERTAINING ANGELS.--THE JEWS.--
PRAYER FOR RAIN AND ANSWER.--GOD'S JUDGEMENTS ON THE WICKED.--
MOVED TO KANSAS.--DEATH OF MOTHER GLOYD.--SERMON OF A CATHOLIC
PRIEST.
In this chapter I will tell of God's leading. I say of my life, "This
is the Lord's doings and marvelous in our eyes." A Methodist conference
was held in Richmond, Texas, about the year 1884. I attended. The
minister read the sixty-second chapter of Isaiah. From the time he began
reading I was marvelously affected. Paul said it was not "lawful" or possible
to utter some things. There was a halo around the minister. I was
wrapt in ecstacy. My first impression was that an angel was talking and
that the house was ascending to heaven. I felt my natural heart expanding
to an enormous size. I looked to see what impression was made on
the people in the audience. I saw one man nodding. I was surprised, for
no one seemed at all astonished or delighted.
At the close of the meeting I tried to find out the meaning. No one
felt as I did. I went to a saintly woman, Mrs. Ruth Todd, and asked her
about the sermon. She had felt nothing remarkable. I had never been
taught that anyone but the Apostles in Jesus' time got the gift of the Holy
Ghost, or I would have understood this wonderful state. I then and there
openly consecrated myself to God, telling my friends that "from henceforth
all my time, means and efforts should be given to God." (Mr. Nation
in his petition for divorce said that up to this year I had been a good wife.)
I was often considered crazy, on the subject of religion. When I spoke
to people I would ask them, "if they loved God;" I could not refrain from
this; the servant in the kitchen, the guest, the merchant, the market man;
I felt impelled by divine love for the souls of men.
God had given me an intense love for souls, and one was as precious