Anna Coope, sky pilot of the San Blas Indians

Foreword

This is a remarkable book, and for the reason that it is born out of a remarkable, and, indeed, an almost unprecedented experience. The author's life is spent daily and hourly in communion with the Creator and Heavenly Father. God is always near, always revealing His love, and manifesting His protection and deliverance. The book is especially timely in these days when God is held by so many to act only through the established laws that control the physical universe. It is inspiring and uplifting to be in the atmosphere even for a short time of a faith that believes in God every moment, and trusts Him for all things, realizing that He is present in the smallest details of our daily life. The book is published under the strong conviction that it will strengthen the faith of all who read it, and bring the believer into closer touch with the Eternal Father and Omnipotent Saviour.

JuDSON Swift.

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Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I GiRLHcx>D Days in England . • . . i

II New Life in a New Land . . , ^ . 20

Chapter I Girlhood Days In England

I HAVE often been asked to write the story of my life, showing how God has led me and provided for every need as I walked by faith in his promises. What God has done for me He can do for others, and if the reading of these chapters will help some one to step out by simple faith on His promises, every one of which is Yea and Amen in Christ Jesus, I shall be glad that I have tried to tell the story in my simple way.

In Bolton, Lancashire, England, a large manufacturing town of about two hundred thousand inhabitants, on Tuesday, May 31st, 1864, I first saw the light of day. I was not very warmly welcomed because I was a girl, poor me! Although I was the express image of my father, he was not particularly fond of me, so I became mother's girl. For some time she cherished a grudge against me because I had blue eyes and flaxen hair like my father, but after a while, mother-like, she became reconciled to my defects and loved me in spite of them.

I was the first-born, which has been a comfort to me, for God has said : "The first-born are mine." The second child came two years later and was a boy. Mother and father were very happy, but the baby did not stay long, only three months, and from that time I was the only child.

When I was vaccinated I became a great deal of trouble, for something was wrong with the vaccine and my arm became so bad that the doctor said it would have to be amputated; but mother said she would not bring up a one-armed child, and he must either kill me or cure me with two arms. To be a girl was bad enough, but to be a one-armed girl was unendurable!

Finally the arm healed, and then there came a growth in my nose which no one seemed to be able to name. One doctor said it was a polypus, another contradicted this; but whatever it was it gave me pain. My mother went to one doctor after another, some saying that I was too young to be operated on. At last she became desperate and said, "Operate at once, whatever the result, and let us know the worst; she cannot go on suffering in this way." The operation was performed and I lived, but with a pug nose that was to be all my life my thorn in the flesh. I did not mind being a girl, but to be called "Pug-nose" by thoughtless children in school, was hard to bear.

I can see that God allowed this trouble for a purpose. Because of it I kept aloof from other children, and as I was an only child I stayed much in the house and learned all that a girl ought to about housekeeping, was the companion of my mother and grandmother, and began to read at an early age. I was very fond of reading out loud and my parents encouraged it, so I was getting my first lessons in a life of service for others.

I mention my "thorn in the flesh" because

I know that many are unhappy because they are not beautiful in face. But God has said in Isaiah: "How beautiful are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace." So I am glad that I have "beautiful feet," and that Go's chose me to carry the message of salvation to many of His neglected ones. "Man looketh upon the outward appearance, but God looketh on the heart." If I had not had the "thorn" given me, I would have looked like other girls and quite probably would have married, so my whole life would have been different. I believe God allowed that disfigurement to come into my life to keep me for a particular work, therefore that operation was the first lesson in my missionary training.

My parents were hard-working people; neither one had had much schooling. My father went to work when he was seven years old and was apprenticed to learn the mulespinning trade. My mother also began working at an early age. Both of them were members of large 'families, and they had to assist in filling the family purse. My father was very fond of reading and was ambitious to have me learn, so he put me in a girls' private school when I was five years old and I stayed there until I was nine. I was always very fond of telling others what I had learned myself, so I began in those early days to teach my mother when I came from school, and I was sure that she and my grandmother were wonderfully edified! My father encouraged me to read and bought me books as rewards for good reading. He guarded me against what he termed ^'boshy fairy tales," and later on against novels, examining every book that I brought into the house, even from the Sunday-school library. He threatened what he would do if he ever found me reading love stories.

When I was nine my father took me from the private school, saying that I knew more than he did at my age and that I must now go to work. The law then would not allow a child to work all day long in any factory until it had passed the fourth standard, so I was put in school for half a day and the other half I had to work in a hot cotton factory. Here was another preparatory lesson in the school for missionary training; I was learning how to live in a tropical climate. I was not allowed to speak to the boys or men who worked for my father or near him. When passing them and wanting to speak, I seemed to feel the keen blue eyes of my father piercing even my back. He punished me once when he thought I had talked with a boy who worked near by, and the only sympathy that I got from mother was, "You must obey your father." I did after that, you may be sure; for years I would not look at or talk to a boy. Although my father was not a professing Christian, and never took me to the house of God nor read the Bible in his home, and was bitter against me when at the age of seventeen I accepted Jesus as my Saviour, he had had the training of a godly mother who had prayed much for her nine children. She was what they called a Strict Baptist, and my father had been a good Sunday-school boy, so my aunt told me, but like many boys had stopped attending when he thought he was getting to be a man. My mother was partly brought up a Roman Catholic. Her mother was of French descent, but marrying an Episcopalian, their house was divided and only one of their eight children clung to the Catholic Church, the others going to the Church of England. So my mother never taught me the religion of her childhood, but her oldest sister, the one Catholic in the family, tried her best to make me a convert of Rome, and would have succeeded if my father had not kept such a strict watch over me. He finally forbade her coming to the house. Here again is an evidence of God's overruling hand, for I was very receptive to religious influences and was just at the age to be easily moulded.

When I left the private school my first Bible was given to me, and I well remember my cousin saying to me that I must put it away and keep it clean, as he did. He was ten years older than I and his Bible was as clean as when he received it. He never read it; oh, no, the Bible was to have and to hold occasionally, and to keep nice. I don't remember reading it in the private school, but in the new Episcopal parochial school to which r went, we often read the Bible ; and one of the teachers asked me to come to the Sunday-school and be in her class. My father reluctantly consented, saying that he didn't believe much in religion; it made folks crazy. I was allowed to go occasionally and was very glad indeed, but not until I was eleven years old did I go regularly. I remember going with a neighbor's child, a girl of my own age, when about seven or eight years old ; and there I heard a lady tell of the children in India who had no Sunday-school, who did not know how to sing these beautiful hymns and who knew nothing about Jesus who loved little children. I said, "Why doesn't somebody go and tell them? I would go if I were big, and when I get big I will go!" That settled it! I was marked for a missionary to Indians somewhere from that day; that was my star, my goal, henceforth.

But now a new experience came into my life. One day while playing on the outer circle of an open-air Methodist meeting, I heard a boy of about fourteen say that he knew his sins were forgiven and he was very happy. I had never heard any one talk like that before. My mother's mother had told of Jesus dying on the cross for sinners, but sinners were old folks, not a boy like that or a girl like me! Yes, grandmother did tell me that I "had a temper," but she never said that I was a sinner. This boy said that he was '^a sinner," but that Jesus had forgiven all his sins and that he was happy because he knew it.

Now if I had dared to speak to that boy I Would have questioned him pretty closely, but I did not dare, so I had to puzzle over the matter without getting much satisfaction. God had used that boy to fix my attention on spiritual things. I wanted to know how he knew that he was forgiven. I had been going to the Sunday-school and the church and was learning new things both from the Bible and the Catechism, but this was the newest. The Catechism said that I was "a member of Christ, a child of God," but I knew that in my heart I did not feel this to be true, and there came over me a great longing to be saved and to know It.

I tried to get to a cottage prayer-meeting held not far from my home, but it was held at night and I was not allowed to go out after dark, so there was no help in that direction. I made up my mind that I would read my Bible more than ever and pray, and that was really the beginning of my searching to find out God. How I groped in the dark! I felt better when I prayed much, but I was not satisfied. I asked God to tell me that my sins were forgiven and I would tell it to everybody. I thought I must be confirmed, but my father vetoed that. Then I planned to go to a Methodist Sunday-school, and my mother forbade that; she didn't like "too much religion" any more than my father.

I grew desperate. Here I was seeking to get what I was sure was the best thing in the world, and those who ought to be helping me were keeping me back for fear I'd go crazy. Crazy? I felt as though I really should go crazy if I didn't get religion, and the kind that boy talked about, that made him glad. I knew that I was not glad, and I knew that my parents were not either; so I went on struggling, endeavoring to be a Christian. It was all endeavor; there was no Christian in it.

So I went on struggling. But the Lord has wonderful ways of helping those who are seeking him, and he opened a way for me in the dark. Just at this time my father sub-

GIRLHOOD DAYS ii

scribed for a monthly paper, The Life and Explorations of David Livingstone, He read it because he was interested in the exploration scheme, but I read it because David Livingstone preached Jesus to the poor Africans. What did I care where the source of the Nile was? I wanted to find the source of salvation! Livingstone became my hero, and I looked forward eagerly to the coming of those papers. I determined that I would be a missionary after I had found out how I myself could be saved. The source of life eternal was my quest and as a guide-book I read my Bible constantly.

In talking to one of my friends who had been confirmed I asked her if she knew she was a Christian. She said, *'I think so." I was dreadfully disappointed, because she did look so sweet in her white dress and confirmation cap that I thought somehow she must have been changed, but when she said, "I think so," I exclaimed, "Oh, dear me, I want to know! That boy said he knew; why don't you?" She said that was not to be known. "The minister didn't teach us that in the confirmation class. He said to be good and to try every day to do right, and that Jesus would help us."

I resolved then and there that I v^ould never be confirmed until I had a different feeling than this, until I knew surely that I was saved.

I was about sixteen now, and a new battle was being fought out in my heart. At times I wanted to go to dances; my feet fairly tingled to dance music. I grew desperate and said that I wouldn't try any longer to be a Christian; I would be like my father, who made no profession and who never went to church. I knew professing Christians who danced, but I felt in my own heart that if I ever became a Christian I would not want to dance, and the reason why I wanted to now was because I was a sinner, "a miserable sinner," as the Prayer Book said; we chanted it every Sunday in the Litany, and I knew that it was true of myself. I made up my mind that I'd not struggle much longer. If I didn't come to know soon that I was saved it was no use pretending; I'd give up trying and go to the dance and the theater and have a grand good time! Why not? If it had not been for fear of my father I would have done these things ; and I resolved that when I was of age I would do them, if I was not a Christian before that time. So I went on struggling and trying and finding no real peace.

In the Lenten season of 1882 a minister of the Church of England came to our town to hold what is called a Mission for forty days. He spoke in the Sunday-school, and his words, his manner, his spirit were so different from anything that I had come in contact with before that I made up my mind that he was a Christian, and I wanted to hear him preach. I could get hold of what he said, or something got hold of me, and I trembled. The Sunday night that I heard him first he preached about the second coming of Christ, and it was so vivid that I expected Jesus to come before he got through preaching; and to cap it all he asked this pointed question: ^'Is every one in this church ready to meet Jesus and go with him if he comes now?" Oh, it was like a thunderbolt in my soul! I trembled, and it seemed to me that I could hear my soul cry out in agony: "No, I am not ready 1"

At the close of his sermon the preacher asked all who wanted to talk with him to go into the vestry, and the choir sang, "Yet There Is Room." I sat fixed in my seat. I wanted to go and yet I could not seem to take the first step. Alternate waves of chill and of fever swept over me, and I cried and trembled. One of my friends said, "Annie, what are you crying for? You are a good girl. If I were like you I'd not cry."

"Oh, Emma," I cried, "don't talk like that! I'm not good; I'm a miserable sinner, and I know it!"

She said, "I will go with you into the vestry," but I preferred to go alone; I did not want such a poor helper.

I did manage somehow to get into that vestry and the room was full. I took a seat at the door, and my agony was so great that I sobbed aloud. The preacher's wife came to me and wanted to know why I cried. I said, "I'm not ready if Jesus comes to-night!" She talked to me kindly about being good and believing on Jesus. "Oh," I exclaimed, "I have tried to be good, but trying does not make me a Christian. I want to know that

I am one." The good woman could not enlighten me much, and I said to myself, "I see that it is only God who can help me; I shall have to talk to him." I got up from my knees with the grim determination that I would be a Christian and the "know so" kind; there is no other kind but the "know-so's."

I went home and to my room and shut the door and cried and prayed, and became so exhausted that I fell asleep only to wake up the next morning in agony. But I prayed again and cried, and my grandmother asked me if I were sick. Yes, I was, but a dose of her wormwood did not cure that sickness.

Finally on Wednesday, March 29, 1882, at three o'clock in the afternoon, I was really saved. It was while on my knees praying in the kitchen before a low rocking-chair — ^^down low in every sense of the word — that the light broke on my soul and I felt my burden of sin roll off. I had never read Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," but I had the same experience that Pilgrim had of the burden rolling away. I rose to my feet like one on air, with these words ringing like bells in my soul: "Certainly I will be with thee," and oh, I was happy! I danced for joy, and in a few minutes was on my way down the street to the home of my Sunday-school teacher to tell her the good news. She said she was glad; that she had prayed for me, because she wanted all her girls to be confirmed! Confirmed? That might be another step, but it was enough for me now that I knew that I was Christ's and he was mine. I replied, "Oh, I don't think my father will let me be confirmed, but I know that I am a Christian now, and I am happy."

I almost walked on air after that testimony; and I was eager to have an opportunity of telling my friend who sat beside me Sunday night. I met her on the street, and grasping her arm cried: "Oh, Emma, I know I am a Christian now!"

"How do you know?" she asked; "I do not, and I have been confirmed and you have not"

True, I had not been confirmed ; but I had been so convicted of sin that, like David, my bones waxed old through my groaning. Now God had spoken — "Certainly I will be with thee" — and I knew the voice ; it was not that of a human being; and my whole soul was flooded with light; I had the joy of assurance. Blessed assurance! My mouth was opened that I might tell it out to others. It was no more "hope so," "think so," but "I know"!

My friend said : "Don't go crazy telling that story!"

"Oh, no, I won't be crazy," I replied; "but I'll tell it to everybody!"

That afternoon I told my grandmother, who had been visiting a friend. She said: "Well, I'm very glad to hear it. Now if you are a Christian, when I ask you to leave your books and wash dishes you'll do it without stamping your feet and banging the doors."

You see grandmother had not much confidence in my "Christian endeavor" life and wanted to see the real thing. But her remarks did not cool me off ; I was a Christian and I knew it.

When my father came home — ah, here was the test of my courage! But I had something to tell and I went at it straight as a die. He. growled, than said in an indirect way, not speaking to any one in particular: "H'm, it's a whim she has ; it will soon pass off." Well, thirty-four years have gone by and the "whim" is still on. He did not understand, neither did mother, who simply said: "I hope so," when I told her.

But none of these things moved me. I was living in a new world ; I was born again. I was "a new creature in Christ Jesus," a child of God and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven. I never again repeated that part of the Litany which says that we are "miserable sinners," for I did not feel that I was. I knew that I was a forgiven sinner, and it made me very happy. My girl friends called me "saint" and "too religious," because I refused to go with them on their Sunday afternoon strolls but would go with my Sunday-school teacher to visit the sick. I gave as my reason that I wanted to be a missionary, so I must begin to take my training.

A candidates' class for confirmation had been formed during Lent, and I had twice asked my father to let me join it, only to be refused. But about two weeks before its close I asked once more, to receive the answer: "Well, your grandmother says that you are better. If you keep on like that you may do as you please." So I joyfully made preparation to be confirmed on May 1 8th, just thirteen days before my eighteenth birthday.

Chapter II

TWO years after my conversion we left England for the United States, landing in New York, then going on to Providence, Rhode Island. My rector had given me a letter to present to any Episcopal clergyman where I might settle.

We lived only two months in Providence; then father and I got work in the Turkey Red Dye Works at Bellefont, near Auburn, Rhode Island. In this establishment I learned to weave damask tablecloths ; and at every opportunity I bore testimony to Jesus who had saved me and day by day kept me. We lived in old Elmville until the Roger Williams Park Association took the land, the Wextend Park grounds, etc., when we purchased a lot and built a cottage in Edgewood and made that our permanent home.

I found that there were two churches in

Auburn, which was very thinly populated at that time — one Baptist and the other Adventist of the American Pre-millennial Association. A young woman who worked near rne in the factory offered to take me to Sunday-school, which she said she attended when she had something new to wear. So I went to the Baptist church in the morning and the Sunday-school in the afternoon, but was so disappointed that I cried when I went home. I told my mother that the preacher was uninteresting and nothing that he said touched the heart. I had expected something different from the church to which my grandmother belonged, but this church was probably an exception. The Sunday-school was no better; the girls seemed giddy, and the teacher was not able to hold their attention. There was more display of jewelry than I had seen among the wealthiest ladies of the church at home in England, and I was actually homesick for my old church.

This went on for several Sundays when a neighbor, talking with my mother at the well, invited mother to go with her to her church the following Sunday evening. She thanked the one who invited her, but said that she did not care to go to church; that her daughter might, however. I had heard this other one called "the little church," and I looked forward with hope that it might be simple and quiet and rtleet my need. It did. As I entered the door I felt at home. The bellringer was also deacon, janitor, Sunday-school superintendent and Bible class teacher. He shook my hand so that I remembered it ; there was no doubt of my welcome. The one-room building was so simple in its arrangement and color-tone that I was rested at once. When the other members of the congregation came in, my escort and I were introduced and made to feel welcome. I felt that I had found my church home, and it proved to be that for thirteen years.

The preacher, the Rev. F. O. Cunningham, who is still alive and preaching in the New England States, was a fine singer and the whole assembly sang heartily. The hymns were new to me, so I listened. I remember one in particular: "IVe reached the land of corn and wine." Ah, yes, that was just what I had reached, and I was going to stay if

'i'he l.rst school was a native house with palm- leaf root and bamboo walls.

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I feel very big towering over some of the women, who stand under my arm."

they would let me, but I wondered how I was to join such a church, which in England would be called a Dissenting church.

The singing and the prayer uplifted me; but the sermon was wonderful. It was on the second coming of Christ, which was presented in such a way that I sat spellbound. I had never heard a sermon like that in all my twenty years. The preacher who spoke the night that I was converted had talked of the Lord's coming in judgment, and I was terrified because I was not ready to meet Him. But this was a different phase of His coming. I did not lose a word, and I turned to the references in my Bible so that I could read them again. Tears rolled down my face. I was fed; I was happy; my hungry heart was satisfied.

When the service was over the preacher came to me and said: "A stranger, but you are welcome." I said: *^Oh, can I come here always?" Of course I could! That night I literally skipped down that lane, and my friend laughed to see me so happy. I kept saying: ^'Jesus is coming back, and I must be ready for Him. But do you have such Bible readings as that always? It was almost all Bible 1" Even my mother was pleased to find I was satisfied and happy.

I united with that church by baptism on Sunday, June 7th, 1885. The pastor left in about eight months, and we had various supplies for some time. It was during this period that I received the "second blessing," or, as it is often called, "sanctification." It came about in this way. I read in the religious notices of a "Holiness" meeting to be held in South Providence, and I decided that I would like to attend it. I was not well enough acquainted with Providence to know where to find the place, so I spoke to one of the members of our church about going with me. "What is a Holiness meeting?" I asked. "It sounds good to me." Sarah shrugged her shoulders and advised me not to go at the risk of being thought queer; but all that she said only made me more determined, and at last she promised to accompany me.

As we neared the place of meeting that Sunday afternoon the singing was inspiring — "You may have the joy bells ringing in your heart" — and the music seemed to fill me with such joy that I felt that I was getting a new experience already. As the room was seemingly full, seats were found near the door. Everything impressed me favorably. There were about three hundred present and their faces were shining with intelligence and spiritual power; there was no display of dress or jewelry; I felt that I was among my own, and I was ready to listen to the word that proceeded from such v^holesome sensible people.