The story was published in the February number of Success, and the response was—I do not know how to describe it—astounding, amazing, yes, almost embarrassing. Over four thousand letters reached me from all parts of the country, and the editor received letters from ministers informing him that the story had been read by them from the pulpit in place of the regular sermon. My heart throbbed when I saw how the miracle performed by my Mamie Rose in the name of God had moved the many, and again had I cause to thank my Maker for having sent her to me—if even for so short a time.
Through Mr. Powlison I was invited to speak before several branches of the Y.M.C.A., and, though my delivery and elocution are very much at variance with oratorical methods, the story of the miracle proved again that our God is the same God, the God of old and of new.
I believe that I can see my path before me. I shall write. Brilliancy, elegance of diction and a choice vocabulary will not be found in my stories and articles, but the truth is there, as I have seen it, as I have lived it, and that is something.
This is the direction in which my ambition lies. I want to be a writer with a clearly defined purpose. I want to tell the plain truth about men and things as I know them and see them every day in the homes of the tenements, in those abodes of friendless, hopeless men, many of whom were once as good and respectable as any of you. I want to dedicate my pen, no matter how ungifted, to their service, that others may know, as I know, of the places and conditions where fellow-beings begin to rail against their God and men because they deem themselves forgotten. I want to show that often their hearts hunger most and not their stomachs, and want to ask you to believe that they, as well as others, cannot only feel hunger and cold, but can also love and despair.
I feel that there is work in this field for me, and it is my ambition to become successful in it and worthy of it, as a living testimony that one of God's sweetest daughters has not lived and died in vain.
This is the story of the miracle wrought by my Mamie Rose.
THE END.
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