| OCR Text |
Show 152 Without the help of my Heavenly Father I think I could not, but if I am faithful he will strengthen and aid me and bless and preserve them through all the many days of the coming year, and enable me to return to them with a mind well laden with useful knowledge and better prepared to perform the sacred duties I owe them.18 Milford congratulates her on the results of her examinations: I had no idea (knowing your opportunities, et cetera) that you would be so successful in your examinations. I think it most remarkable, for I regard your examinations this spring a greater difficulty to encounter than they will be next spring. I think your standing is worthy of all praise, and should satisfy the most ambitious. Allow us to congratulate you most earnestly on your triumph, for triumph under the circumstances it is most assuredly.19 Ellis's ecstatic response includes: "All the plaudits of the world combined could not give me half the joy. And again I do thank my Father for His assistance..." The April 14th mail contains kind letters from home, including one from Lizzie with another order for fifty dollars. "How pure and heavenly," Ellis exclaims, "Is the relationship of sisters in the holy order of Polygamy. Even the kindred ties of blood could not be...more unselfish and enduring...Unity is strength." Who could better understand a woman approaching maternity than another in the same situation? When Ellis received the monies from Lizzie, this dear sister wife was only days away from bearing a child of her own. The "pure and heavenly" impulses which caused Lizzie to send such a quantity of money to Ellis emanated from her own natural sweet spirit. There is nothing negative in the ideas presented later by her daughter in explaining what transpired after Milford and his first two wives became physicians. It was to the effect that |
