Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1886-06-04
IN. Y. Tribune. 1

Plainfield, n. j., has sensation. Miss
Louisa Mann, after being totally blind for
twenty-five years, has suddenly regained
her sight. The town is not given to sensa-
tions. 1t grows attenuated along the line
of the railroad to the south until it be-
comes a double row of frame houses on
each side of the railroad track. One of
these is the abode of the Manns, a family
which left Virginia not many years ago.
Their faces show the dark hue and the
tervid temperament of the South-the very
dark hue of the extreme south of Africa.
Some OF the palings are gone from the
fence about their door-yard. The outlook
is upon the romantic expanse of the gravel
embankment for the railroad. The numer-
Gus children have worn the paint off the
veranda and the grass off the soil. In the
living room are a cook stove and a sewing
machine. 1t is to this room that the visi-
tor, who wished to see the subject of a
miraculous cure" was shown yesterday.
Miss Louisa was summoned from an up
per room and came down slowly and hes
itating. Her eyes blinked and rolled, and
she rolled her head on one side in trying
TO use them. They seemed to become
weary with little use. When only seven
years old, Louisa fell down stairs and in
two days "went blind" as her old mother
explained. She was in bed for three
months, and after getting about again was
subject to occasional "very bad SPELLS" of
epileptic fits. Her general health con-
tinued to grow worse and one physician,
who examined her eyes in Virginia, said
that she was too young to have them oper-
ated upon and nothing further has ever
been done for them. Seven years ago she
joined the Methodist Church and since
coming to Plainfield has attended the Bap-
tist Church. A year ago Miss Dunbar, of
Boston, who is a member of the faith -cure
congregation, went to Plainfield and be-
came interested in the sufferer and in
structed her in the tenets of her own faith,
to which she believed her own recovery
from an illness to be due.
"She used to come and sit with Ine,v
said Louisa, ''and read to me from the
Bible. and told me to- trust in the Lord
and He'd make me well again" Louisa
trusted for several months. One night
last June she had four "spells" in one day
and has not had any since. Her general
health has been much improved since
then. Miss Dunbar told her to go on trust
ing and she would get back her eyesight.
Her cure is thus described in her own
words:
Last Thursday night about ten O'Clock
was lying on the bed with my mother be-
side me. praying as hard as could, when
began to see light. The room seemed
| filled with it. could see my mother, but
l wouldn't have known her IL / hadn'l
heard her voice. Icouldn't say anything
for an hour except just to think: 'Bles.
the Lord! Pm cured.'" On going about
next day things were visible to her, but il
strange, forgotten way. "It appeared
as II there wasn't any top to some of ths
trees il the yard" she added.
1t seems that at times during the last
few months she has been able to dis
tinguish light from darkness, and evi-
I IDENTIFY her sight is not in an entirely nor
NAL condition yet. She has had no medi
cal examination of her eyes, so no scien.
tific opinion of the cure could be had.