And he counseled his hearers to keep on and work—work and follow the leadin’ of Him who shall conquer all sin and evil.
It wuz a grand and powerful effort. It wuzn’t so flowery as I’ve hearn, but the strength, the pathos of it wuz wonderful. I didn’t wonder as I hearn him talk of what I’d been told that day by different ones of how people flocked to hear him, how he might have the choice of big city churches with big salaries accordin’, but he had chosen to stay by the common people. 178 Had elected that he would not have wealth and station, that he would go about tellin’ of the love of God, urgin’ men to accept Him, goin’ about doin’ good.
As we listened to him, everything seemed possible, the right seemed possible to do, it almost seemed as if we felt the crown restin’ on our tired foretops. And he ended the sermon as he had begun it with a few words from the Book, “Now bretheren quit ye like men, be steadfast, strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.” And then agin he breathed out his very soul in prayer, and we wuz lifted up some distance towards the Better Country. As he ended his words we all heaved some long sithes and seemed to fall down some distance, and found ourselves to our great surprise still on the old earth.
A enthusiastick little woman, who’d shouted out, “Amen!” with the best of ’em sez to me, “Wasn’t that sermon a grand one?”
“Yes,” sez I, “it come right from his heart, and went to mine. It lifted me up some distance above the earth,” sez I.
“Yes,” sez she, “the Elder is one of the saints on earth, but we are afraid he hain’t long for this world.” 179
“Why?” sez I.
“He don’t take any care of himself. He lives alone with an old housekeeper who is dretful slack and don’t have any faculty, and he don’t have things for his comfort, though he don’t complain. He gits no end of money, but gives it all away, or it is wasted to home. I went to his house once on business,—I am from the West,” sez she,—“and it wuz so bare and desolate lookin’ that I almost cried. He ort to marry,” sez she, “I have five daughters myself, and three onmarried nieces and they all say the same thing, that he ought to be married to some woman who would jest worship him, for no woman could help it, and take care on him. For,” sez she with a shrewd look, “the smartest men and the most spiritual ones are the most helpless, come to things of this world.”
“Yes,” sez I, “our minister to Jonesville could no more make a mess of cream biscuit than he could fly. He is great on the Evidences, and a great Bible expounder, but he couldn’t sew on a button so it wouldn’t pucker the cloth, if he should cry like a babe.”
“No,” sez she, “I presume not, my girls are splendid with the needle, and good cooks, and so religious—it’s a sight! and so are my sister’s 180 three girls, though they don’t quite come up to my five.”