In Rutherford we had an excellent minister—a Mr. Walcott, a good man full of the Evangel he loved to proclaim. He and Mrs. Walcott welcomed us gladly, and the church welcomed us, and we had in Rutherford all the spiritual privileges hungry souls could wish. I was conscious, however, of a great change. I had acquired, I knew not how, a self-sufficiency in spiritual things that needed nothing from human sympathy or numbers. There are experiences in life, after which we cannot go on in the old way; can never be what we were before. I had gone through several such experiences.
I had lost many of the convictions and illusions of my youth. I had gained much knowledge of men and of things, that I had not yet either accepted or refused. But I clung with passionate fervor to my trust in God’s love and care, and in spite of the frequent dropping of cold words of doubt in my presence, I still had an almost awful prepossession in favor of the Bible. I read it alone with my daughters, and we talked of its promises, and as we four knelt together in earnest prayer, or holy silence, there was some times the blessed consciousness of Another with us. Christ had promised to be with such worshippers. Christ will keep His promise even to the end of the world. So we passed out of the splendid church, into the little upper chamber, but we did not pass out of God’s love and presence.
CHAPTER XXI
THUS RUNS THE WORLD AWAY
“I must tell all. I cannot be unfaithful to my past. If I cut it away, I am but half myself. I wish also faith in the years to come, and those lofty delights which defy the tomb.”
In the meantime my work went steadily on, and I wrote a good deal for a Mr. Marks, who very soon removed to London. But in the interval he supplied the place of the Christian Union which in the years 1876 to 1877 was at such a low ebb, that no one but Dr. Lyman Abbott, who then took it in charge, could have guided it over the sea of its difficulties, into the safe harbor of its present influence and success.
In looking over my diaries for these years, I am astonished at the amount of money I made from short stories, poems, and articles. We lived comfortably on it, and wanted no good things. And I think my readers must be so familiar now with my regular life, that I will only specify the incidents which varied and changed it somewhat, until I reach the period when I gave up newspaper and magazine work for the purpose of writing books.
The first event of moment was our leaving Rutherford, and going to Denver, Colorado. To this day, I wonder at the circumstance. I was certainly ill, no, not ill, but completely tired out body and mind, so that even my ever upspringing soul was inert and indifferent. A change was imperative, but the sea, and a week or two of my native air, would have put me all right. Let no one smile at my prescription. In cases of lost vitality and extreme weariness, one’s native air is the finest tonic and builder up that can be taken. Drugs have nothing to compare with it. I am very weary now, but I know that if I could sit on Ulverston fells, and breathe the potent mixture of her sea and land ozone, I would be in a week ten years younger. I do 355 not say this on my own experience or authority. English specialists insist on its virtue, and I know one of the greatest surgeons of New York, who takes this tonic every summer, if possible, and comes home a new man.
Well, I went to Denver. It was the most foolish thing I ever did, and I can not tell why I did it. There was a vague idea in my mind, that if I could not write any more, I might open in this new, growing town, such a school, as I had had in Chicago; and then my children had been talked into an enthusiasm about the West, and youth is always sure that change must be for the better. I gave way with a supineness that astonishes me to remember. A letter to Mr. Abbott, the passenger agent of the Erie line, settled the matter. He offered me a compartment for four at half-price if I would write an article for a pamphlet they would publish, and speak otherwise favorably of the line as I had opportunity. The girls were delighted, and I tried to feel some of their enthusiasm. The great trouble to me, was the breaking up of the home and the sale of the furniture I had worked so hard to obtain. But there was no alternative. If there were storage houses then, we knew nothing about them, and Lilly, who always looked at the bright side, said,
“It would be well to be rid of it. We didn’t know how, or where to buy furniture, Mamma, when we bought this heavy stuff. I know now where far prettier and cheaper can be had. Just let this go, Mamma. We can’t drag it to Denver, and if we do come back, we will buy things far more suitable.”