CHAPTER VII.

SPIRITUAL LEADINGS.—­JESUS A CONSCIOUS PRESENCE THREE DAYS.—­LOSS OF LIBERTY BY COMPROMISING.—­THE PRICE PAID TO BE REINSTATED.—­DISGRACE TO BE A MILLIONAIRE

I had once while in Medicine Lodge, a heavenly rapture for three days.  My Savior was my constant companion.  I saw no form, heard no word.  But His dear face was just behind and looking over my right shoulder.  He was a conscious presence and the deep peace was beyond any experience I ever had.  I shunned the society of persons.  I would talk to Him, would sing and play the accompaniment on the organ.  I was particular about my home work.  While I saw no face, or form, I realized that His was a sweet, smiling, gratified expression, and it told me I was pleasing Him.  I did not seem then to think this anything wonderful, and have often reproached myself for not setting more store by this at the time.

There was a period of from six months to a year that I was terribly haunted by a feeling as if hung over a precipice.  I was hanging only by a rope above my head held by a hand out of a cloud.  At night or in the day, it was the same uneasy dread of falling.  The precipice below was black and horrible.  There were banks on each side.  At last I swung over, landing on the right side.  Oh! the relief!

When I first began to pray in public I was very awkward, never could make any but what one would call a disconnected prayer, that never seems to be impressive in an audience.

I asked an old-fashioned sister, who I knew was a saint, to tell me what was wrong in my testimony.  “I do not have liberty when I speak.”  She said:  “You do not praise God enough.”  I began to pray for a spirit of praise.  Shortly after this I was at prayer-meeting, was praying for a spirit of praise.  It was put in my mouth I rose to my feet and began to say:  “Praise God; Praise God!” repeating it over and over.  Oh! how sweet to use and hear those words!  I could scarcely repress the impulse to use them all the time.  For a long time after this, when the Bible was read or testimony struck me as being just right, I would audibly say:  “Praise God!” This was a “gift”, for I had never felt the impulse before.  I have in a measure left this off, but I use it all the time, when I hear good news, or see what pleases me.  “He led captivity (sin) captive and gave gifts unto men.”  Ever since I received the “baptism of the Holy Ghost,” I have liked one church about as well as another.  I go to all even the Catholic.  I fast on Friday and use the sign of the cross.  Fast, because my Savior suffered in the flesh on Friday; use the sign of the cross, because in the cross is salvation.  Meditations on the cross always lift heavenward.  ’Tis the royal way, I want to keep it always in view, want it to be the last I see.  We who bear the cross continually in this transient life, will wear the crown continually in the eternal.