“You, Martha, who have such wonderful influence over the children, such patience, such affection!”
“It was n't always so. When I was first put in charge of the children, I did n't like the work. They did n't respond to me somehow, and when they were out of my sight they were ugly and disobedient. My natural mother, Maria Holmes, took care of the girls' clothing. One day she said to me, 'Martha, do you love the girls?'
“'Some of them are very unlovely,' I replied.
“'I know that,' she said, 'but you can never help them unless you love them.'
“I thought mother very critical, for I strove scrupulously to do my duty. A few days after this the Elder said to me: 'Martha, do you love the girls?' I responded, 'Not very much.'
“'You cannot save them unless you love them,' he said. Then I answered, 'I will labor for a gift of love.'
“When the work of the day was over, and the girls were in bed, I would take off my shoes and spend several hours of the night walking the floor, kneeling in prayer that I might obtain the coveted gift. For five weeks I did this without avail, when suddenly one night when the moon was full and I was kneeling by the window, a glory seemed to overshadow the crest of a high mountain in the distance. I thought I heard a voice say: 'Martha, I baptize you into the spirit of love!' I sat there trembling for more than an hour, and when I rose, I felt that I could love the meanest human being that ever walked the earth. I have never had any trouble with children since that night of the vision. They seem different to me, and I dare say I am different to them.”
“I wish I could see visions!” exclaimed Susanna. “Oh, for a glory that would speak to me and teach me truth and duty! Life is all mist, whichever way I turn. I'd like to be lifted on to a high place where I could see clearly.”
She leaned against the frame of the open kitchen door, her delicate face quivering with emotion and longing, her attitude simplicity and unconsciousness itself. The baldest of Shaker prose turned to purest poetry when Susanna dipped it in the alembic of her own imagination.
“Labor for the gift of sight!” said Martha, who believed implicitly in spirits and visions. “Labor this very night.”