nto the Ganges? Thank you, Sister Tuttle. The women
are leading off, getting ahead of you, brethren. Put down five dollars
from Sister Tuttle. Now, who will give four dollars?" and so on down
till even the sinners on the back benches subscribed a rattle of dimes.
I listened with comfortable indifference. I thought of how William
died without enough oil in him to grease his joints. And how many more
like him had died too weak and depleted to have even "assurance" of
their own salvation. I remembered how I wished toward the last that I
could afford a few delicacies, for William liked cordials and real
cream which might have strengthened and cheered him. Then and there I
resolved never to give another cent to foreign missions. I am not
opposed to foreign missions, you understand. William and I did without
much that the heathen might have missionaries, and the gospel preached
to them. But that is just it. We did without too much. I am not
saying that anyone else ought to lessen their contribution to this
cause. Let them give even more. But I am certain they ought to treble
their contribution to old preachers. There is something fearful in the
Bible like this:

"But if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his
own house, he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel."
That Scripture expressed my feelings exactly as I listened to the
preacher take up his foreign missionary collection and remembered
William's dreadful poverty. So, I say, I made up my own private mind
that there is something wrong with the way church collections are
distributed, and that if I ever had any spare money it should be
devoted to purchasing a taller tombstone for William.

Immediately I felt my own "I am," sitting up in me and taking courage.
It was a grand sensation. For so many years I had not belonged to
myself. I was simply a prayer-meeting numeral, William's personal
dynamo at the women's societies. Suddenly it came to me that I was a
free moral agent for the first time in my life--widows are the only
women who are. The scandalous reflection took hold of me as I listened
to the collection and reflected that never again would I have to worry
lest William fail to raise all his "assessments," that I should never
be anxious now for fear his sermons might not please the "prominent"
members of his church. But the most refreshing, rejuvenating of all
was the thought that at last I could be a little less