



Produced by Timeless Truths Online Library, Charles Franks,
Juliet Sutherland, Joel Erickson and the DP Team











TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS OF FAITH

BY MARY COLE

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.
Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the
wiles of the devil.--_Paul_.




PREFACE

The history of the world consists mainly of the stories of the lives of
certain men and women whose deeds have been of sufficient importance to
make them worth relating. The lives of some persons have been worth
narrating because of their abounding in deeds of great merit, such as the
lives of Washington, Gladstone, Frances E. Willard, and Joan of Arc. The
lives of others have been thought worth narrating because of their great
wickedness, as the lives of Nero and Queen Mary of England.

But the church too has a history. This history differs from the history of
the world, in that it does not record merely the doings of man, but the
workings of God through man as his instruments. God is a jealous God who
manifests himself only through those who are willing to give him all the
glory. Hence not many names of the wise, powerful, talented men of the
earth have been enrolled on the history of the church, since they were not
humble enough to submit fully into God's hands. In the church truly this
scripture has been proved: "God has used the weak things of the world to
confound the mighty."

Sister Mary Cole, of whose life this book is a brief, authentic sketch, had
a natural inheritance that seemed calculated to shut her forever out of a
place in the history of the world or of the church. Born with a body that
from her earliest childhood was racked with pain, deprived by ill health of
education, she seemed naturally unfitted to fill any place in the world and
doomed to be only a burden to herself and her friends. How God took her,
healed her, and fitted her for his service, and how he used her as an
instrument for his glory, is the story of her life.

The publication of the story of her life was so remote from her thoughts
that it was only by the solicitation of some one who had been greatly
helped by her faith and experience and the workings of God through her, and
who was unwilling that her trials and triumphs should be lost as a part of
the history of the church, that she was prevailed upon to write this brief
narrative of her life and work. The story of her life would not, indeed, be
worth telling were it stripped of the manifestations of God's power. As you
read this simple story, you will see clearly that, as Sister Cole has
herself expressed so many times, what she is she is by God's grace, and
that all she has accomplished she has accomplished through God's power. If
you will take at their value the oft-repeated expressions, "God told me,"
"God spoke to me," "God made me to understand," realizing that these words
tell us something that actually happened, you will get some idea of how
marvelously God can use even the weakest members of the human race.

Aside from the interest this brief history will have for those readers who
have had the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with Sister Cole and who
have had the privilege of listening to her stirring messages delivered
under the anointing of God's Spirit, it can not fail to interest and profit
all who take pleasure in reading about the dealings of God with man.

It is the sincere wish of the author and of all those who had a hand in
preparing this work, that it will show some their greater privileges in the
kingdom of God, and that it will help some to covet the divine help,
guidance, and power that are the heritage of all God's children.

J.W.P.




CONTENTS

I. Birth and Ancestry

II. Early Afflictions

III