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 dear sainted friend, though I knew it not, daily prayed and believed for my conversion. Five years before she was made aware of the fact, her prayer had been answered. Her joy, when one day I called upon her to impart the welcome news, knew no bounds, and until she passed away we spent many happy days in each other's company. A few hours before she went home, she gave her children and me her parting blessings. The precious prayer of this dying saint as she held her aged hands on my head comforts, sustains, and encourages me now, even as it did then, and I believe that it ever will.
HER BLESSING.
"Lord, I thank thee for answered prayer. Make this, thy child, wonderful for thee, Lord, wonderful for thee! for Jesus' sake. Amen." Though she spoke with great difficulty, yet every word was distinctly audible. About two hours later she sang (with me) the following lines as she passed into eternal rest:
Oh! if there's only one song—I can sing
When in his beauty I see the great King,
This shall my song in eternity be:
Oh, what a wonder that Jesus loves me!
I am so glad that Jesus loves me!
Jesus loves even me.