People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1896 — FROM STAGE TO PULPIT. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FROM STAGE TO PULPIT.

Okie* an Actress, Mrs. Peake Is Mow an Influential Evangelist. First a society girl, then leading lady in a stock company of players, Mrs. Edith L. Peake is now rounding oat her life as a successful woman evangelist. Mrs. Peake is from San Francisco. She and her husband, Charles Peake, formerly a business man in San Francisco, arrived fn St. Louis Saturday nigfit, after several months of evangelistic work in Kansas. Their last stopping plaoe was Ottawa. It has been nearly four years since Mra Peake entered upon the work of an evangelist, and 16 years since she abandoned the stage. She had been seven years leading lady in a stock company traveling along the coast presenting Shakespearean plays. “I wonder if you will understand,” said Mrs. Peake to a reporter, “when I tell you that the Lord called me to my present work. I had been many years a professing Christian when I was sent for by the presbytery at San Jose, Cal., to deliver an address before them. A few days after they invited me to undertake the work in which I am now engaged.” “How did you chance to leave the stage?” “Again I must say that it was the Lord’s work. I was stricken with typhoid fever, and it was some time after

I recovered before I could return to my work. While I was idle an old lady, a very dear friend, kept after me to attend Mr. Moody’s meetings, which were in progress in San Francisco. She talked to me about it for six weeks before I consented. At the first meeting I attended the Lord talked with me and I yielded. I left the stage immediately.” “What impelled you to go upon the stage?” “The necessity of earning a living. I was born in Massillon, O. My mother died when I was quite young, and then my father moved to New York city. “I went into society there and led about as useless a life as the average society girl. When my father met reverses, and it became necessary for me to support myself, there was seemingly nothing for me to do. Friends advised me to try the stage, but I was bom with some pride and would not enter upon such a life in the city where I had always lived in luxury. So I went out to California and had no difficulty in obtaining an engagement with a stock company, finally becoming the leading lady.” Mrs. Peake will remain in St. Louis six weeks, she and her husband going then to Kansas City. She is a woman of dignified presence, although inclined to embonpoint. Her hair is golden, and she arranges it in simple fashion.—St. Louis Post-Dispatch.