“While living in Canada, my eldest daughter, then a girl of ten years of age, rather delicate and of feeble health, had a severe attack of chorea, “St. Vitus’s dance.”  To those who have had any experience in this distressing complaint, nothing need be said of the deep affliction of the household at the sight of our loved one, as all her muscles appeared to be affected, the face distorted with protrusion of the tongue, and the continuous involuntary motions by jerks of her limbs.  The ablest medical advice and assistance were employed, and all that the sympathy of friends and the skill of physicians could do were of no avail.  She grew worse rather than better, and death was looked to as a happy release to the sufferings of the child, and the anguish of the parents; as the medical men had given as their opinion that the mind of the child would become diseased, and if her life were lengthened, it would be an enfeebled body united to an idiotic mind.

“But God was better to us than our most sanguine hopes far better to us than our fears.

“In our trouble we thought on God, and asked his help.  We knew we had the prayers of some of God’s chosen ones.  On a certain Sunday morning I left my home to fill an appointment in the Wesleyan chapel in the village of Cooksville, two miles distant.  I left with a heavy heart.  My child was distressing to look upon, my wife and her sister were worn out with watching and fatigue.  It was only from a sense of duty that I left my home that morning.  During the sermon God refreshed and encouraged my heart still to trust in him.  After the service, many of the congregation tarried to inquire of my daughter’s condition, among them an aged saint, Sister Wilson, widow of a Wesleyan preacher, and Sister Galbraith, wife of the class-leader.  Mother Wilson encouraged me to ‘hope in God,’ saying ’the sisters of the church have decided to spend to-morrow morning together in supplication and prayer for you and your family, and that God would cure Ruth.’

“Monday morning came.  Ruth had passed a restless night.  Weak and emaciated, her head was held that a tea-spoonful of water should be given her.  My duties called me away (immediately after breakfast) to a neighbor’s; about noon, a messenger came, in great haste, to call me home.  On entering the sick-chamber, I noticed the trundle-bed empty, and my little girl, with smiling face, sitting in a chair at the window, (say eight feet from the bed.) I learned from the child that, while on the bed, the thought came to her that, if she could only get her feet on the floor, the Lord would help her to sit up.  By an effort, she succeeded, moving herself to the edge of the bed, put her legs over the side until her feet touched the floor, and sat up.  She then thought, if she tried, the Lord would help her to stand up, and then to walk; all of which she accomplished, without any human aid, she being left in the room alone.  The same afternoon she was in the yard playing with her brothers, quickly gained flesh, recovered strength, with intellect clear and bright; she lived to the age of twenty-two, never again afflicted with this disease, or anything like it.  At the age of twenty-two, ripe for heaven, it pleased God to take her to himself.