" (Mr. Nation
in his petition for divorce said that up to this year I had been a good wife.)
I was often considered crazy, on the subject of religion. When I spoke
to people I would ask them, "if they loved God;" I could not refrain from
this; the servant in the kitchen, the guest, the merchant, the market man;
I felt impelled by divine love for the souls of men.
God had given me an intense love for souls, and one was as precious
as another to me. I now see what the enlarging of my heart meant. Once
an old colored man brought in the kitchen some eggs to sell. I said:
"Uncle, do you love God?" He turned to my cook Fannie and said:
"Hear dat". Fannie said: "Oh! Mrs. Nation knows the Lord." Uncle
said: "Thank God one white woman got ligen," clapped his hands and
praised God. It used to be and is now the sweetest music to have anyone
praise God. I am at church often, when I long to hear a loud shout of
praise go up to the giver of every good and perfect gift. It is torture to
attend the cold, dead service of most of the churches.
I was a teacher in the Methodist Sunday school and had given perfect
satisfaction up to this time; but things changed. The minister said from
the pulpit that the teachers should be Methodists, and spoke so pointedly
that all knew he meant me. The superintendent at the Episcopal Sunday
school asked me to teach in their Sunday school. (This was Judge Williams,
the husband of Lola, Mr.
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