sister is Waitstill, perhaps you mean her?"--and Ivory sat
down by the fire with his book and his pipe.
"Waitstill! Waitstill! that is it! Such a beautiful name!"
"She's a beautiful girl."
"Waitstill! 'They also serve who only stand and wait.' 'Wait, I say, on
the Lord and He will give thee the desires of thy heart.'--Those were
wonderful days, when we were caught up out of the body and mingled
freely in the spirit world." Mrs. Boynton was now fully started on the
topic that absorbed her mind and Ivory could do nothing but let her tell
the story that she had told him a hundred times.
"I remember when first we heard Jacob Cochrane speak." (This was her
usual way of beginning.) "Your father was a preacher, as you know,
Ivory, but you will never know what a wonderful preacher he was. My
grandfather, being a fine gentleman, and a governor, would not give his
consent to my marriage, but I never regretted it, never! Your father
saw Elder Cochrane at a revival meeting of the Free Will Baptists in
Scarboro', and was much impressed with him. A few days later we went to
the funeral of a child in the same neighborhood. No one who was there
could ever forget it. The minister had made his long prayer when a man
suddenly entered the room, came towards the coffin, and placed his hand
on the child's forehead. The room, in an instant, was as still as
the death that had called us together. The stranger was tall and
of commanding presence; his eyes pierced our very hearts, and his
marvellous voice penetrated to depths in our souls that had never been
reached before."
"Was he a better speaker than my father?" asked Ivory, who dreaded
his mother's hours of complete silence even more than her periods of
reminiscence.
"He spoke as if the Lord of Hosts had given him inspiration; as if the
angels were pouring words into his mouth just for him to utter," replied
Mrs. Boynton. "Your father was spell-bound, and I only less so. When he
ceased speaking, the child's mother crossed the room, and swaying to and
fro, fell at his feet, sobbing and wailing and imploring God to forgive
her sins. They carried her upstairs, and when we looked about after the
confusion and excitement the stranger had vanished. But we found him
again! As Elder Cochrane said: 'The prophet of the Lord can never be
hid; no darkness is thick enough to cover him!' There was a six weeks'
revival meeting in North Saco where three hundred souls were converted,
and your f
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