Part 2 (1/2)

She went home and sat down that evening alone, in the dining-room, depressed. The enfeebled family--the aged crippled mother, the sick sister and her own young son--had retired. As she thought the subject through, she became convinced that it was not good to spend time and money in the way proposed. Instantly the words THE SAVIOUR filled her soul with indescribable hope, and as she thought of His miracles, and how _the same Jesus_, on earth, healed paralyzed ones, the hope grew that He would heal her.

With the well hand she stretched out her paralyzed hand on the table and said: ”Dear Lord, will you heal me?” Like an electric shock the life began to move in her arm, and the continued sensation was as though something that, previously, had not moved was set in motion. The feeling pa.s.sed up to the head, and down the body to the foot. _She was healed!

and she was grateful!_ She did not speak of her experience to the family, but retired. She rose early the next morning, and awoke her son,--a prayerful, dutiful young man,--and said to him, ”I'm going to church, to-day.” He replied, ”Then I'll get up and go with you,”

expecting that she must ride.

Her soul was solemnly full that day of the felt presence of the Holy Spirit, and she did not like to talk. Her son watched her movements, astonished.

She went to the church, took a cla.s.s again in Sunday School, and; in going back and forth to church that day and evening, walked about sixty blocks without weariness.

We are not permitted, here, to draw aside the curtain, to dwell upon the surprises and the grateful joy of that ever-to-be-remembered, sacred day.

A few days after this healing, she, with a consciousness that she was running a risk, lifted a heavy weight, and a numbness returned. She confessed the sin to the Lord, and asked Him that, when she had been sufficiently chastened, He would take the trouble away. Gradually, within two days, it disappeared, and has never returned.

At the time when Mrs. Furlong was healed, in answer to prayer, Miss.

Jordan's case was considered hopeless. Her lungs had been diseased since 1876. In November, 1879, her physician had decided that tubercles had formed in the left lung, and that the right lung was much congested and hardened.

In 1882 she had many hemorrhages, and gradually grew worse, so that she could not use her left arm or shoulder without producing hemorrhage.

Mrs. Furlong, soon after her own healing, received a comforting a.s.surance from the Lord that her sister would be healed; but Miss Jordan, herself, had not that a.s.surance. At this time she took little or no medicines, the physicians and the family having no confidence in their curative effect; but, on the 1st of January, 1884, she had so many chills and hemorrhages, that they sent for the family physician to aid in checking, if possible, the severe attack.

During this apparently rapid descent deathward, Mrs. Furlong continued to repeat to the family and to the physicians that the Lord would heal her sister.

Miss Jordan was one day so low that she could just be aroused to take her medicine. As Mrs. Furlong went to give it, Miss Jordan said to her, ”Do you want to throw that medicine away?” Mrs. Furlong said ”Yes,” and threw it away. Six hours of united waiting upon the Lord followed. They were hours of pain. From nine in the morning till three in the afternoon she suffered indescribable pain. A few minutes after three, the pain left her, and with a bright look she said, ”I believe I'm better.” She wanted to rise and dress, but Mrs. Furlong advised her to rest through the night. She said she had not, in five years, been so free from weariness and pain.

The aged mother was sick in bed with that broken wrist, and Mrs. Furlong feared that her sister's improved condition would shock and perplex her.

Miss Jordan lay on the lounge the most of the time for two days. One of her expressions was, ”It's perfect bliss to lie here free from pain.”

Her breathing became perfectly natural, and very soon the great hollow place in the upper part of the chest, over the left lung, filled out.

Shortly before her healing she only weighed eighty pounds; but a few months after her weight had increased to one hundred and twenty pounds.

She progressed in health rapidly, and on the second Sunday after the healing came she attended church. The feeble mother was most sensitively anxious lest her daughter should pursue some unwarrantable course which should lead to relapse.

Miss Jordan's health steadily improved, but it was several months before a cough entirely left her. You may be sure that doubters made the most of that cough! _But it left her!_ At one time she brought on a slight relapse by giving lessons in crayon drawing. She came to the conclusion that the Lord had other work for her to do: and at this writing, September, 1885, having prayerfully and watchfully followed the leadings of the Lord, is a missionary among the freedmen of the South, and is strong in health and in faith, ”giving glory to G.o.d.”

One of the aged mother's perplexities was that the Lord should want her to live on in such a helpless and useless condition, while her daughters, who might be so useful, must die; but oh, how successful she had by precept and example taught those daughters that ”He hath done all things well!” How patiently she suffered whatever she thought was the Lord's will! How sweet was her constant thanksgiving! Said a pious Christian neighbor, whose poor health restricted her attendance at church, ”When I'm hungry for a blessing I go down to see old lady Jordan.”

After eight painful weeks, she so far recovered from the sickness consequent on the broken and dislocated wrist as to move around feebly, but sight and hearing were almost gone. Her leg was stiff, her hand stiff, her wrist deformed, and her mind greatly impaired.

Miss Jordan became very hopeful, and received strong a.s.surance, in answer to prayer, that her mother might be healed. Mrs. Furlong received no a.s.surance whatever in her mother's case. There was a great deal of talking and praying about it, in the family, and finally Mrs. Jordan humbly claimed the Lord's help, beseeching Him that since He had recorded that He would make the blind to see, the lame to walk, and the deaf to hear, if it was His will He would heal her. This was the night of June 16th, 1884.

In the morning Miss Jordan was so hopeful that she rose early, and attentively listened to the movements in her mother's room. She called the little family's attention to them, saying, ”Just listen to her;” and as, holding on by the banister, the aged mother came with her accustomed slow movements down to the dining room, Miss Jordan said, to them, ”Now, watch her.”

According to the long habit of eight years, she began to reach out for her cane, unconscious that she had been walking around her room with new freedom. Miss Jordan went toward her and said, ”Mother, do you want your cane?” and, wondering, the old lady walked freely into the dining room.

They gathered around her, and said, ”Are you not healed, mother?” and she began to think _she was_, and sat down in her chair by the table.

Could she move her hand? The doubled-up thumb, and straight, stiff finger, were _perfectly free_ and as _limber as ever_, and the stiff wrist joint _moved with perfect freedom!_ She _heard as well as anybody!_ Could she see? She went up-stairs to her Bible, whose blurred, dim pages she had thought closed to her forever, and _she could read as well as ever_, and without gla.s.ses! She could thread the finest needle.