Part 18 (2/2)
On another occasion he was sitting with so and sunning hireat exciteht quick Mrs Sadler wants you”
He explained that the wole in her last moments, had asked the bystanders to run for him, her old acquaintance, in the efficacy of whose prayers she had great faith The old patriarch ithout a coat at the time, but, unmindful of that, hastened after
”Mr White,” exclai hile I'm not afraid to die, but I don't want to die that way I want you to offer a prayer forby the woht, he used all his art to soothe her
”Have no fear, Mrs Sadler, now,” he exclaile I will ask the Lord for you, and this evil will not come upon you You need not have any fear”
”Kneel down, you,” he cohbors and relatives who had followed or had been there before him, while he pushed back his white hair froood woman here be allowed to pass away in peace” And even with the rustle of kneeling that accoan to pray
Through his y, no doubt, as well as his profound faith, he succeeded in inducing a feeling of peace and quiet in all his hearers, the sick wo, sank into a restful stupor, froony of mind had apparently disappeared Then when the physical atanized, he ceased and retired to the yard in front of the house, where on a bench under a shade tree he seated himself to wipe his ht commotion in the sick-roohbors came out, and one said, ”Well, it is all over, Mr White She is dead”
”Yes,” he replied with great assurance ”She didn't strangle, did she?”
”No,” said the other, ”the Lord granted her request”
”I kneould,” he replied in his customary loud and confident tone
”Prayer is always answered”
Then, after viewing the dead wo additional co had occurred
I happened to hear of this so with him on his front porch, said, ”Mr White, do you really believe that the Lord directly answered your prayer in that instance?”
”Answered!” he almost shouted defiantly and yet with a kind of human tenderness that one could never mistake ”Of course He answered! Why wouldn't He--a faithful old servant like that? To be sure, He answered”
”Might it not have been th introduced? The quality of your own thoughts goes for so in such matters Mind acts on reeable as if it had always been a doctrine with him ”I know that But, after all, what is _that_--my mind, your mind, the sound of voices? It's all the Lord anyhohatever you think”
How could one gainsay such a religionist as that?
The poor, the blind, the insane, and sufferers of all sorts, as I have said before, were always objects of his keenest sympathies Evidence of it flashed out at the h exclamations, which, however, always contained a note so tender and suggestive as to defy translation Thus, while ere sitting on his front porch one day and hotly discussing politics to while away a dull afternoon, there caed, half-deazed about in an ai idly down the road, staring strangely overhead into the blue It was apparent, in a moment, that the h, however, to be allowed abroad and so save the county the expense of caring for him The old man broke a sentence short in order to point and shake his head emotionally
”Look at that,” he said to me, with a pathetic sweep of the arm, ”now just look at that! There's a poor, demented soul, with no one to look after hi saddler His sister is dead No money to speak of, any of them” He paused a moment, and then added, ”I don't knoe're to do in such cases The state and the county don't always do their duty Most people here are too poor to help, there are so many to be taken care of It see but leave them to the mercy of God, and yet you can't do that either, quite,” and he oncethe county, but he explained very charitably that it was already very heavily taxed by such cases He did not seem to know exactly what should be done at the ti the warotten Now he lapsed into silence and all coreat chair and thought
One day in passing the local poor-fare), he ca a poor idiot with a whip The latter was incapable of reasoning and therefore of understanding why it was that he was being beaten The tere beside a wood-pile and the de In a moment the old patriarch had jumped out of his conveyance, leaped over the fence, and confronted the amazed attendant with an uplifted arm