I admit that the idea
was not attractive. Somehow or other I distrusted the Methodist class
meeting. But my love for the class leader prevailed.

"Very well," I said; "if you go, I go too."

We went together and found eight or nine women of various ages
assembled in the little vestry. Mother Hubbard took her seat at the
table, and I sat next to Widow Smithies, who moved up to make room for
me.

We sang a hymn, and then Mother Hubbard prayed--prayed in a gentle
voice which had much humility in it, but an assured confidence which
showed her to be on intimate terms with her Lord; and when she had
finished I read the 103rd Psalm at her request, and we sang again.

Then she spoke, and her voice gathered strength as she proceeded. I
cannot write down all she said, but some of the sentences are burned
into my memory, though the connections have escaped me.

"We will not have an experience meeting to-night, my friends, because I
want to speak to you, and God has given me strength to do so. I am
weak in body, but my spirit was never stronger. It is the spirit which
is the real life, so I was never more alive. I have thought a good
deal lately on those words:

"'Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall
utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their
strength: they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and
not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.'

"'They that wait upon the Lord' shall do this. Not just the strong and
powerful, but poor, weak old women like me; aye, those weaker still who
are helpless on sick-beds; the paralysed and lame who cannot walk at
all--all these shall 'renew their strength.' They are unable even to
totter to the old pew in the house of God, so weak and shaky is their
poor human frame; aye, but they shall 'mount up with wings as eagles.'
The eagle is a strong bird; it makes its nest on the cliffs of high
mountains, it soars up and up into the clouds, and it can carry sheep
in its talons, so great is its strength. And, do you realise it? they
that wait upon the Lord are like that. Weak and worn out in body, but

"'Strong in the strength which God supplies
Through His Eternal Son.'

"My friends, I thank God that in that sense I am strong to-night; and
do you think that when I am so strong I am going to die? Never! Life
is going to be fuller, richer, more abundant."

I gazed upon Mother Hubbard in astonishment. She