While holding meetings in Portland, Ind. on Wednesday, May 24, we were informed that there was a telegram at the office for us. On going there we were startled with this brief dispatch: "Sarah died this morning in Cincinnati. Signed, L. F. Keller."
He is a brother of the one we ought to be able to call our wife, and this fact rendered the familiar name "Sarah" all sufficient in the dispatch. O my Lord, is it possible that she is cut off in the midst of her days! She who seemed so fresh and well is suddenly called to be the first to break the circle of six children, all of whom were early instructed in the fear of the Lord. Ah, we can not help the conviction that had the dear woman never been alienated by the adversary to break her solemn vows, and held by a blind and erring influence from returning to the obligations of a mother and wife, yea, and had she not been by that influence led to obtain a bill, and that on absolutely false grounds, she would be alive, well, and happy today. But alas, all is past now....
We wrote immediately to our friend who had kindly informed us of the departure of the one who once so filled the vision of our heart, for the particulars of her death, and received a prompt reply that she died with acute typhoid fever, to which was added peritonitis, and that she did not express herself about the future. Out of a full heart we would love to say much, but we have space only for these thoughts. May God comfort the sorrowing mother, brothers, and sisters.
The unhappy woman, having forsaken her God, her husband, and child, became married over a year ago to another man. But alas, how often the path that leads from God is cut short!
As to what became of Stockwell, the author has found no trace. When Brother Warner recovered his spiritual poise, after the terrible conflict at Bucyrus, he renounced Stockwell, and the latter at once dropped all profession.
An incident that occurred at Medina, Ohio, before Stockwell's defection, gave Brother Warner some trouble. A Mrs. Booth had had a vision in which she saw herself caught up with a thousand-dollar note. Stockwell, who was at that time apparently in sympathy with the Trumpet, interpreted her vision to her as meaning that she should give the one thousand dollars to the Trumpet. She then decided to do so and threw the money into the lap of Sister Warner, who refused to accept it. Stockwell then said he would take it, which he did, and with it paid off the debt against the Trumpet office. After this was done, Mrs. Booth came to Brother Warner one day in company with an attorney for the purpose of recovering the money, whereupon Brother Warner adjusted the matter by mortgaging the Trumpet equipment for one half the amount and giving a note for the balance. The report got out in some manner that he had fraudulently taken the money from Mrs. Booth. In explanation he speaks of the matter as follows:
We feel rather like treating with silent contempt the wicked aspersions that have gone through many papers, secular and religious, against our character; but as friends demand it of us we will just say that the report that we fraudulently took from a Mrs. Booth a thousand dollars by mesmeric influences is wholly and basely false. If we have been correctly informed, it was fabricated by a lying infidel in Bucyrus and furnished to a Cincinnati Enquirer reporter by him. That paper, after consulting more reliable parties in Bucyrus, on the 15th of last February published an article refuting all the reflections that had been cast upon us. The Church Advocate, having published the Enquirer's slanders, also took back the charges against us. The fact is, we never had any hand in obtaining that money. We were at our home and knew not that the woman had a thousand dollars or any money at all, until a letter was sent me stating she had given the same. We also have letters from her stating that she had cheerfully and deliberately given the money; that God had called her to do so and that she did not regret the step she had taken. But subsequently she fell through the opposition of her husband and Satan, and we gave security for the money because it was demanded, though we were under no legal or moral obligation to do so.
One can imagine that during his severe trial at Bucyrus Brother Warner felt very much forsaken. But God had many others who were ready to stand with him. There were those who were solicitous with reference to his welfare. In one of the issues of the Trumpet we find this little note:
A brother writes thus, inquiring of us, "O Daniel! is thy God continually able to deliver thee?" Through the amazing grace of God we are able to answer from the lion's den and from the seven-times-heated furnace, Yes. Glory to the God of our salvation, he keeps our soul above the world, the flesh, and the devil, and from all sin. He keeps us from these two opposite regions of death, namely, the cold, hard-hearted, grating, fruitless spirit of carnal sect-hatred on one side; and from the soft, spurious, self-soothing, carnality-pleasing, and sect-compromising, all-bogus love delusion on the other. God helping us we shall never move out of Mic. 3:8 and Psa. 149:6-9.
He received many letters from those who were sympathetic and who were thankful for the Trumpet. The following are a few: