January 1929
24
T h e
K i n g ' s
B u s i n e s s
A B o tt le E vange list B y F rances A ustin T routman
f HERE have been many unique methods used in spreading the written Gospel. But in the little city of Fremont, Nebraska, lives a shut-in, who, perhaps, uses the most unique method known of awakening a taste for this type of reading among those who could not or would not otherwise ever read the Bible. Miss Juniata Anglemyer, a helpless invalid, who for forty long years has been tied to her bed by the direful effects of arthritis, which has distorted her limbs and fingers until they are today almost totally useless, received
places—in places that most folks with her lack of strength would never attempt to reach. A brain active enough to take the place of the physical action she misses, gives her an impressive personality, makes one forget her infirm body. It is a matter of pride with Miss Anglemyer that she has improved her methods as she has gone on with this missionary work of hers. She now uses large glass jars and seals them with waterproof materials, explaining fhat they may remain in the water for years before they are picked up. Folks have w r i t t e n ,
the incentive for her form of missionary work from reading of the services con ducted on Memorial Day for the martyred sailors and marines. Her manner of spreading the message is modeled after that. The inspiration to take up this form of missionary work came to her years ago when she was still in an Ohio hospital. But it was a long time before she had an opportunity to put her idea into practice. To her it was an important work, real work; that of spread ing the story of Christian salvation. For she believes
thanking her for the tracts, thus giving her concrete proof that her messages are found. Her only means of loco motion is to be pushed about in her wheel-chair, kind friends having volun teered to thus help her in her chosen vocation of love. With an angelic light in her face she tells of the numer ous trips she has been able to make to the Platte River. H er L ife S tory In modest surroundings she is kept clean and com fortable, and a good woman
awaits her every wish. This brought forth the thought of finances, for she is far from her home state and these ser vices cannot be had for nothing. When quferied, she as sured that she came not from a family of means; that God. who is the source of all supply, had wrought a financial miracle for her. In a low, well-modulated voice she then told the story of her life, beginning with her early childhood. She was born on a small truck farm in northeastern Ohio, ten miles from the Pennsylvania line. Typhoid fever caused the death of her mother when Juniata was only nine years of age. Her father, who had, immediately following his marriage to her mother, served eighteen months in the Civil War, during which he contracted the typhoid fever in Tennessee and was finally sent home, never fully recovered from his army illness and suffered constantly up to the time of his death in 1892. While yet within her teens, Miss Anglemyer’s affliction befell her. The first symptoms came upon her suddenly one day while she was turning the garden hose upon the piazza. For twenty-three years she lay in a hospital in Dayton, Ohio. A change became imperative about three years ago, and she came to Fremont. “All through the will of God,” she declares, “I came away out here, far from my people, to be cared for by strangers, who have proved so kind.”
that if one will read even a small portion of the Scripture, the Word will make its own appeal to the heart; that it does much toward shaping the destiny of those who form the habit of thoughtfully reading it, because the Master said: “The words that I speak unto you, they are the spirit and they are life.” Her unusual method is to take printed tracts, seal them in bottles or jars and cast them upon the waters of the Platte River or tie them to boughs of trees along the high ways and byways. Her first bottles containing these tracts were sealed and cast info Lake Erie when she was a resident of Conneaut, Ohio. Later, when she became located in Fremont, she resumed this work and has fol lowed it with amazing regularity, jars even having been mailed way out to California, where they were then tossed into the waters of the Pacific. Her hope in doing this is that they may eventually be washed upon some for eign shore. W rites M any L etters Although Miss Anglemyer has scarcely any use of her right hand or arm, she, with patient perseverance, learned years ago to write deftly with her almost useless left hand. Many letters she writes ;-charming, graceful letters. Letters that go out through the length and breadth of this coun try. And once, she confided, “I sent a letter to Africa.” All of these letters are so filled with the spirit of faith and with the light of inspiration that the lady herself seems to travel with them. Her influence is felt in far
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