It was on the occasion of the visit of Barnum’s great menagerie to this city, on the 28th of June, that the ladies of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union struck a telling blow for temperance and reform by organizing an immense temperance restaurant to accommodate the crowds of people who gathered in from the country to visit the menagerie, thus preventing them from visiting the saloons and groggeries, where they would be exposed to temptation. The mammoth tent, capable of holding five thousand people, used by the Michigan Conference for camp meeting purposes, was tendered for the occasion. Beneath this immense canvas temple were erected fifteen or twenty tables for the accommodation of guests.
(LS 221.1)
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By invitation I spoke in the tent Sunday evening, July 1, upon the subject of Christian temperance, to fully five thousand persons.
(LS 221.2)
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August 9-14, I attended the camp meeting near Kokomo, Ind., accompanied by my daughter-in-law, Mary K. White. My husband found it impossible for him to leave Battle Creek. At this meeting the Lord strengthened me to labor most earnestly. He gave me clearness and power to appeal to the people. As I looked upon the men and women assembled here, noble in appearance and commanding in influence, and compared them with the little company assembled six years before, who were mostly poor and uneducated, I could but exclaim, “What hath the Lord wrought!”
(LS 221.3)
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Sabbath afternoon, August 20, 1881, two weeks after the death of her husband, Mrs. White met with the Battle Creek church, and spoke to the people for nearly an hour. Reporting this service, Elder Uriah Smith wrote:
(LS 255.1)
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“Her theme was the lesson we are to learn from the recent experience through which we have passed. The uncertainty of life is the thought first impressed upon us We should also consider what manner of persons we ought to be while we live”
(LS 255.2)
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“The speaker’s mind then turned to those blessed exhortations of the apostles in reference to the relation which the members of the body of Christ should sustain one to another, and their bearing, words, and actions toward one another. We were pointed to such passages as these: ‘Be at peace among yourselves;’‘be kindly affectioned one to another;’‘be kind;’‘be courteous;’‘speak the same thing;’‘be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment;’‘speak not evil one of another;’‘live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you.’” —The Review and Herald, August 23, 1881.
(LS 255.3)
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Regarding her journey westward, en route to California, and her reflections while tarrying a few weeks at her summer retreat in the Rocky Mountains, Mrs. White wrote:
(LS 255.4)
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“August 22, in company with my daughters, Emma and Mary White, I left Battle Creek for the West, hoping to receive benefit from a change of climate. Though still suffering from the effects of a severe attack of malarial fever, as well as from the shock of my husband’s death, I endured the journey better than I had expected. We reached Boulder, Colo., on Thursday, August 25, and on the following Sunday left that place by private carriage for our home in the mountains.”
(LS 255.5)
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