As a child I was feeble, could never run and play like other children, and life was a burden to me. I was under the care of my father who had been a druggist, and who was a so-called "patent-medicine man." Constant direction,— "Don't do that," and, "Take this dose,"— made me a slave to mortal thought.
When thirteen years of age I was made a teacher in the Baptist Sunday school, which caused me to become an interested student of the Bible. A friend and teacher quoted from Jeremiah, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved;" then, drew a vivid picture of the fire of hell, and warned me to escape while I might. I was in despair, and slept none for nights. I could neither see how I had sinned, nor how to escape from this pictured hell. Finally, she argued that unless I could believe every word in the Bible, which was the Word of God, I pronounced God a liar. Glad to find I had been guilty of some sin which could be forgiven, I admitted that it had been a little hard for me to believe that Balaam's ass talked, and, that I could see it was sinful to doubt this statement, because in Revelation it said, "if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book." I became filled with horror at my wickedness, and, in fear and trembling, asked how I could be sure I was forgiven. "Believe, and be baptized, and thou shalt be saved," was the answer. Yet, after my immersion I had more doubts and fears, but felt I was accepted by God and that all would come right in time.
After I became a mother, and thanked God for well-shapen children, as of old I worried over the deformed creatures I met and thought it unjust that from birth human beings should be deformed mentally as well as physically. Could these be made in the image and likeness of God? I met some "free-thinking" people who believed in naught but themselves, scoffers at the"weak people" who believed in the Immaculate Conception. These said that religion was only a false education or superstition without one word to found it upon; that Genesis was a repetition of Josephus,— and he did not claim to be a sacred historian. Then, I read myself free from the theological belief.
