On the street in Hawick, I met a young brother who exclaimed when he saw
me, "Oh, so you got our postal card?" I replied, "I did not get any postal
card." Then he said, "But you got the telegram?" I told him I had not
received any telegram either. "Well, then," said he, "how did you happen to
come home?" I told him that the Lord wanted me to come home, and then asked
him what the trouble was. He told me that my wife was very sick, near to
dying. Then he very kindly said he would take me out home. On arriving home
wife said, "I knew you were coming; I asked the Lord to send you." She was
suffering from an internal malady from which the nurse had told her she
could not recover, and so made up her mind that she was going to die.
Right at this time we received a letter from Brothers Nelson and Niles
requesting me to come and hold a tent meeting for them in San Antonio and
that I should bring my tent with me to hold the meeting in. Of course, I
felt I could not go and wrote them to that effect. Meanwhile, wife had
persuaded me that she was going to die, and being in poor circumstances, I
said to her, "You will not hold it against me, if when you die, I sell out
and take a homestead and so get out of debt, will you?" And her reply was,
"When I am dead you can do what you please."
Just about that time we got a letter from the Brothers Nelson and Niles
telling us they had been praying and the Lord had showed them that Sister
Susag was not going to die. On hearing this, wife said, "The good brethren
do not know any better; I am going to die." (And I was thinking so, too, as
she was getting no help.) More and more I was thinking about the homestead;
but wife told me I had better go to Texas. It seemed almost impossible to
get anyone to come and stay with her and the children, yet she would say,
"We will get along some way and you had better go or else souls will be
lost. If I should pass away before you get back you know where I am going
and if you keep true to the Lord we will meet in glory."
But I did not feel as though I could go and leave her that way. A couple of
nights after I had had this conversation with her I had a dream. I saw a
little table standing beside my bed on which was a kerosene lamp. The light
was just about to go out. It would light up a little and then go down till
it looked as though it was just ready to quit burning. I saw Jesus standing
on the other side of the table with a sad look on his face, pointing to the
lamp and saying, "Your lamp is about to go out." And I awoke from my dream
and jumped out of bed, ran into the next room and said to my wife, "On
Tuesday morning, I leave for Texas whether you are living or dying." To
which she replied, "Praise the Lord for your decision."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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