A hostile man’s death was read as divine vindication of women’s missionary work

Evidence

The women felt vindicated, however, when the man died shortly after the incident. “He was not permitted,” proclaimed Broughton, “to live long enough to prohibit that good woman a second time from going when her missionary sisters called a meeting.” His death served to reinforce perceptions of the divine sanction of their work and helped diminish further persecution in the area. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 355

Categorization

• BMF: The narrative of a persecutor dropped dead by divine judgment as proof of a movement’s supernatural mandate resurfaces in sermons/prose — closest resonance in the storefront-church world of James Bernard Frost’s ‘A Very Minor Prophet,’ where a spiritual community interprets mundane reversals as providence.
• CANDY: The story of the abusive husband who dies before he can stop his wife’s second Bible Band meeting is a small, self-contained, darkly funny anecdote.
• XREF: connects to: Jealousy over power drove ministers to oppose women’s missionary work — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 351

Broader Connections

• Jealousy over power drove ministers to oppose women’s missionary work #contradicts (0.85) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 351