Life Sketches Manuscript

Efforts for an Education

My health seemed to be hopelessly impaired. For two years I could not breathe through my nose. I was able to attend school but little; for it seemed impossible for me to study and to retain what I learned. The same girl who was the cause of my misfortune, was appointed monitor by our teacher, and it was among her duties to assist me in my writing and other lessons. She always seemed sincerely sorry for the great injury she had done me, although I was careful not to remind her of it. She was tender and patient with me, and seemed sad and thoughtful as she saw me laboring under serious disadvantages to get an education. As I endeavored to bend my mind to my studies, the letters on the page would run together, great drops of perspiration would stand on my brow, and a faintness and dizziness would come over me. I had a serious cough, and my whole system seemed debilitated. LSMS 7.4

My hand trembled so that I made but little progress in writing, and could get no farther than the simple copies in coarse hand. It was not until I began to have visions that I could write so anyone could read it. One day the impression came to me as strong as if some one had spoken it, “Write, write your experiences.” I took up a pen, and found my hand perfectly steady, and from that day to this it has never failed me. The other hand has given out so that I could not use it, but this one never has. LSMS 8.1

Before my nose was broken, I had a clear and resonant voice and enjoyed reading. In school the teacher would often ask me to read the lesson for the rest to repeat, and many times I was called downstairs to the primary room to read their lesson to the little children. I could not understand why I was never called on in this way. LSMS 8.2

Years afterward, as my husband and I were riding on the cars, I was reading him an article he had written, and we were correcting it. Before long a lady touched me, saying, “Are you Ellen Harmon?” LSMS 9.1

“Yes, but how did you know me?” I replied. LSMS 9.2

“Why,” she said, “I knew you by your voice. I attended school on Brackett Street in Portland, and you used to come and read our lessons to us. We could understand them better when you read than when any one else did.” LSMS 9.3

But years after my nose was broken I could not breathe through it, and was obliged to learn to speak and sing with the use of abdominal muscles. This, I have since learned, is the correct method of using the voice, as it relieves the throat from any strain in either speaking or singing. LSMS 9.4

One time my husband's eldest brother John was visiting us, and he asked me to sing. “Won't you sing that hymn, ‘When Faint and Weary Toiling?’” he said LSMS 9.5

“Can't you sing it, Ellen?” my husband said. LSMS 9.6

“I don't know but I can, if you will unite with me,” I answered. LSMS 9.7

So he did, and we sang. Brother John looked at me very earnestly, and finally, when we had finished, he said, “Where did you get that voice? I never heard anything like it.” LSMS 9.8

When I was only about eleven years old, I heard a minister read the account of Peter's imprisonment, as recorded in the Book of Acts; and he read in so impressive a manner that the details of the story and all their reality seemed to be passing before my eyes. So deep was the impression made upon my mind that I have never forgotten it. When, a few years afterward, I was speaking in general meetings, I met this man again; and at the close of my discourse he asked, “How did you get that wonderful voice?” I told him that the Lord had given it to me. (When I began my public labors I had no voice, except when I stood before the congregation to speak. At other times I could not speak above a whisper.) “And,” I added, “I have often thought of what you said to the people when some one asked you how you became a minister. You told them that your friends said you could never be a minister, because you could not speak properly; but you went away by yourself, and talked to the trees in the woods; and then when driving oxen, you would talk to them just as if you were in a meeting. ‘This,’ you said, ‘is the way I learned to speak in public.’” LSMS 9.9

My teachers advised me to leave school, and not pursue my studies further until my health should improve. LSMS 10.1

Three years later I made another effort to obtain an education, by entering a seminary for young ladies in Portland. But on attempting to resume my studies, my health again failed, and it became apparent that if I remained in school, it would be at the expense of my life. It was the hardest struggle of my young days to yield to my feebleness, and decide that I must give up my studies, and relinquish the cherished hope of gaining an education. I did not attend school after I was twelve years old. LSMS 10.2

My ambition to become a scholar had been very great, and when I pondered over my disappointed hopes, and the thought I was to be an invalid for life, I was unreconciled to my lot, and at times murmured against the providence of God in thus afflicting me. The future stretched out before me dark and cheerless. LSMS 11.1

Had I opened my mind to my mother, she might have instructed, soothed, and encouraged me; but I concealed my troubled feeling from my family and friends, fearing that they could not understand me. The happy confidence in my Saviour's love that I had enjoyed during my illness was gone. My prospect of worldly enjoyment was blighted, and heaven seemed closed against me. LSMS 11.2

After I struggled with this unreconciled spirit for days, the tempter came in a new guise, and increased my distress by condemning me for having allowed such rebellious thought to take possession of my mind. My conscience was perplexed, and I knew no way to extricate myself from the labyrinth in which I was wondering. LSMS 11.3

At times my sense of guilt and responsibility to God lay so heavy upon my soul that I could not sleep, but lay awake for hours, thinking of my lost condition and what was best for me to do. The consequence of my unfortunate accident again assumed gigantic proportions in my mind. I seemed to be cut off from all chance of earthly happiness, and doomed to continual disappointment and mortification. Even the tender sympathy of my friends pained me, for my pride rebelled against being in a condition to excite their pity. LSMS 11.4

I had the highest reverence for ministers of the gospel and for all Christians, but felt that they were so far removed from me, so much nobler and purer than I was, that I dared not approach them on the subject that engrossed my thoughts. Religion seemed too holy and sacred for me to obtain. I was ashamed to reveal the lost and wretched condition of my heart. No one conversed with me on the subject of my soul's salvation, and no one prayed with me. So I locked my secret agony within my heart, and did not seek the advice of experienced Christians as I should have done. LSMS 12.1