"I went out there," he went on, "to find this child lying there in the bed with only his sister and grandmother to look after her. The doctor was coming twice a day, but that man asked him, when she could but open her eyes, whether such was necessary; and that when it wasn't, then to come but once. I sat there by her bed, I, her poor old father, and nursed her back to life from the brink of death, the death that surely would have come had it not been for me. And when she was well enough, I went to all the expense of bringing her out of that wilderness back to her home and health.

"And for that, for all that I have sacrificed, what am I given? Credit? Well, I guess not! I am being slandered; I'm being vilified by evil people—and right in my own church! Think of it! For thirty years I have preached the law of the gospel and saved so many souls from hell, and now, now when my poor old head is white and my soul is grieved with the evil that has come into my home, I am vilified!

"No longer than last week, I was approached by a woman, a woman purporting to be a child of God, but who ups to me and said: 'Reverend Mac., what is the matter with your daughter and the man she married? I hear they are parted?' I was so put out that I did not attempt to answer, but just regarded her coldly. But did that stop her mouth? Well, I guess not! She went right on as flip as she could be: 'Well, you know, Reverend, there is all kinds of reports about to various effects. One is that you didn't like him because of his independent ways, and because he was successful, and he didn't take much stock in you because he didn't like the way you had lived. And then there's other reports that he made an enemy of you because he didn't praise and flatter you, and that you did it to "get even." They say that you had your daughter to sign her husband's name to a check for a large sum of money and used it to slip away from him and so on. But the one thing that everybody seems to be agreed upon is, that there was nothing whatever wrong between the couple, and that they had never quarreled and never had thought of parting. That all the trouble is between you and your son-in-law.'

"I had stood her gab about as long as I could, I was so angry. So all I could say was: 'Woman, in the name of heaven, get you away from me before I forget I am a minister of the gospel and you a woman!' But before she had even observed how angry I was, she ups and says: 'Why, now, Elder, as much as you love the ladies, and then you'd abuse a poor woman like me,' and right there, after such a tonguing as she had let out, fell to crying!