Even when I was a child in my first school years, religious instruction was my favorite hour, and the life and works of Jesus impressed me deeply. Although I always enjoyed attending services with my parents at the Evangelical Church in Russia, where I was born and grew up, nevertheless I was unable to take a satisfying impression home with me. Something seemed to be missing, but what it was I was unable to grasp, and I began to look for it myself in the Bible.
When I read Jesus' words in the Gospel of John (14:12), "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father," I gave this much thought. When I married, I found in my husband a loving understanding of my longing for a knowledge of God, and I held his noble character and upright nature in high esteem. But after five years of very happy married life he left this earthly existence quietly and peacefully. His early passing was the consequence of the war between Russia and Japan around 1905, in which he had to see service for approximately a year.
There was no dying in my thought of him, and in spite of the material evidence I sensed this fact so strongly—God's presence as Life with my husband and with me— that grief and despair yielded like shadows, and I was filled by the peace that is higher than all human reason.
