Elizabeth: the Disinherited Daughter Part 1

Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter.

by E. Ben Ez-er.

PREFACE

This booklet is little more than a compilation. The materials were abundant for a much larger book. Elizabeth's divine _experience_ was so striking, so valuable to the cause of truth, that it has not been essentially abridged.

But the _results_ in biography, though well known to all who knew her, have been cut down to the smallest dimensions that would allow that brilliant experience to shine out.

Elizabeth had a lifelong conviction that G.o.d required the publication of His remarkable dealings with her, and in her approach to the river of death solemnly enjoined it upon her youngest son and executor. His own convictions also agree with the requirement. Here are obvious reasons:

1. The early history of Methodism has suffered by the dropping out of many striking ill.u.s.trations of her power. By neglecting to record them permanently while well authenticated, they are now beyond recovery. As this providential work moves on gloriously, making world-wide history, these few preserved incidents of her early triumph become more and more valuable by the lapse of time.

2. Providentially this experience is too rare and too far back in American Methodism to be lost out.

3. The controversy in which this experience was so strong a factor has not become obsolete. The "horrible decrees" have indeed been very generally driven from the pulpit, but not entirely. Our work as polemics will not be finished until they leave the schools and the books, and cease to be pillows for the mult.i.tudes who lull themselves to slumber over the notion of "sovereign grace and waiting G.o.d's time," and cease to goad despondent souls to despair, with the charge of being "from eternity pa.s.sed by" as unredeemed "reprobates."

E. ARNOLD.

_Thousand Island Park_, 1893.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.

THAT STRANGE LETTER.

It was in the latter part of the eighteenth century. The dwelling was a plain frame structure, s.p.a.cious, and of the style of that day (the second story projecting a few inches beyond the first), and was kept painted as white as snow. It stood in the south suburb of the then little city of Middletown, Conn., between two hills on the right bank of the Connecticut River, at the bend called "the Cove." The first break in the happy family circle was made by the departure of a daughter to another State to engage in teaching. Few letters were written in those days, and the postal service was a slow and small concern. But this absent school-teacher had written with much care and vivacity to the dear circle at home as regularly as the months came around. But now, for long, anxious weeks, no tidings from the absent one had reached that saddened home at the Cove. "Why don't we get a letter from Betsey?" was often asked by the fond parents, the loving sisters, and thoughtful little brothers; but no satisfactory answer could be given.

The father would hasten to the city as often as "mail day" returned and watch for the ponderous stagecoach, but come back more moderately, with a shadow upon his countenance, and "No letter!" "No letter!" would deepen the sorrow of the circle. One day the son "Siah" was sent, and in an unusually short time was seen coming over the hill with a speed so unlike a disappointed lad that the watchful mother was "sure the dear boy had tidings." Her lip trembled as she motioned to the father and called out, "Where's Esther? Where's Sam? Call 'em all in. Siah's coming real fast; I guess he's got a letter from Betsey!" "How he does ride!" says Hannah.

"Dear fellow, I most know he's got a letter!" "Yis, yis," says little sharp-eyed Sam; "see, he holds suthin' white higher'n his head." Sure enough, on comes the rider, flourishing in his hand the long-looked-for message from the absent one!

It was but the work of a moment for the excited lad to leap upon the block, throw the bridle over the post, and run in, letter in hand, vociferating, "Don't ye worry any more about Betsey; she's all safe and sound. See, it's in her own handwrite." "Yis, daddy, and stuck together with that same red wax you gin her," says little Sam.

Ruth breaks the seal and finds a large sheet, and closely written. A glance from the father brings the house to silence, and she begins to read. Never a letter began with more tender words or in a sweeter spirit; but all sounds so precise and awfully solemn that the voice of the reader falters; tears fill the eyes of the mother and sisters; the father turns pale; little Sam looks frightened and grips his mother's arm, while Josiah sobs aloud. But the resolute reader moves steadily on, and only breaks down when she reaches the name, "Your loving daughter and sister, Elizabeth Ward."

These words stung that proud father to the quick. To hear his darling's name attached to _such_ a letter, and find his cherished plans thwarted forever, was more than he could endure. He arose in a paroxysm of wrath and left the house. The mother, watching him, became greatly alarmed, for she had never seen him so angry.

As the boys lead the horse to the stable the girls take the letter to their room, where they weep much, pray some, and read over and over again that strange doc.u.ment.

CHAPTER II.

ELIZABETH'S ALIENATION FROM THE ANCESTRAL FAITH.

Elizabeth Ward was the eldest of six children. She had a tall, straight form, rather stern and dignified airs, a keen black eye, and a beautiful countenance, though rather on the masculine order. Her father, Samuel Ward, was a wealthy farmer and stock grower and a skillful horseman. He had determined to give this, his eldest daughter, a liberal education, and have her a.s.sist in the instruction of her sisters. She proved so easy to learn, and showed such apt.i.tude and application in study, that he afforded her the best opportunities given young ladies in New England at that day. And in his pride of horsemanship he took much pains to make her a skillful equestrienne, and never seemed prouder than when riding out with Elizabeth by his side upon an elegant steed in costly equipage. To carry out his notions for the perfection of her accomplishments, he sent her to Pittsfield, Ma.s.s., among wealthy and cultured relatives, to devote a year or two to a.s.sociation with elegant society. And to avoid that horror of the real Yankee's dreams, "shiftlessness," she was to take up a small select school for employment. There too, as at home, she must have a splendid horse at her command, and no cost must be spared to make her equipage, as well as wardrobe, as elegant as the best. Morning and evening rides must be kept up for health and recreation, but not less to indulge a doting father's pride.

She found her new situation very agreeable. Her relatives were educated and fashionable, and soon became very dear to her heart. Her school consisted of a suitable number of misses from wealthy families, as cheerful as the larks and as gay as b.u.t.terflies. Her opulent friends very readily entered into her father's plans, and were especially delighted with her experience and skill in horsemanship; and a sufficient number equipped and joined her in this healthy movement to insure her the best of company in her morning and evening rides. And her popularity as an equestrienne fed her pride, and her gay letters home were full of it, and very agreeable to her proud father. Nor did the rapid improvement of her a.s.sociates in this elegant accomplishment, under her teaching and example, escape the notice of their fond parents and of their townsmen, and "The way that tall schoolmarm rides is wonderful!" was spoken by many an observer, and many a young woman envied the proud troop "their chance to learn how to ride a-horseback."

In the daily excursions of these gay cousins they sometimes pa.s.sed, on a retired street, the meeting place of "a new and strange people called Methodists." Jesse Lee, George Roberts, Francis Asbury, and others, mighty men of G.o.d, had just gone over New England like a thundering legion, proclaiming everywhere a "free salvation for all, even for John Calvin's 'reprobates.'" They had glorious success, even in cold New England, and of the fruit of the revivals which attended their labors formed many small but excellent "societies." One of these was established in Pittsfield.

The sweet and moving singing of these people arrested the attention of our heroine and her friends as they occasionally rode by; and, pausing in their saddles to listen, enough of a tune would get into their heads and keep ringing there to turn their course that way again. Catching a charming tune, they "must get the words, at least a verse or two." So, from pausing outside to listen, they grew bolder, tied their horses, and civilly sat down inside, not only charmed with the songs, but curious to hear the fervent prayers and testimonies and occasional shouts of this bright-faced company. When their friends said anything against this people as being "unpopular," or "despised," these young fashionables would sing them a Methodist verse or two, and perhaps join in the ridicule by mimicking their shouts. And yet in their sober judgment they honored these honest and devout worshipers for their fervent piety and zeal, and wondered at their rapturous joys. But they were quite mistaken in their confidence that an occasional attendance upon worship so spiritual was perfectly safe. The Holy Spirit dwelt with this people. These gay young attendants became the subjects of mighty prayers and powerful exhortations. Bows, "drawn at a venture," threw arrows with great force. The Spirit directed one to the proud but honest heart of Elizabeth Ward, and she was "thoroughly awakened." Perhaps in the few prayer meetings these young people had dropped into within the past year they had imbibed more gospel truth than in all their former lives. But the songs which had so captivated them, many of which they had learned to sing, had struck those truths into the mind indelibly, and had so enlisted the moral nature of Elizabeth that the Holy Ghost had written convicting impressions upon the inner tablet of her heart. She did not long resist this new "conscience of sins." She clearly saw and deeply felt that she was a sinner, and on the way to ruin. In more of desperation than hope she set out to "flee from the wrath to come."

In this state of alarm, she walked alone to the Methodist prayer meeting, made known her convictions and purposes, and sought instruction and help.

She returned from that meeting feeling that she had almost entered a new world. Gospel hope, now for the first time in her life, began to spring up in her heart. She had settled the question of submission to her Maker, and began to seek Him with purpose of heart, resolved to confess and forsake her sins and seek pardon and peace in Jesus Christ. Still, as to several of the counsels of her new religious instructors she was undecided, because not yet convinced. They advised her to seek the Lord "by prayer and supplication." To "ask," to "knock," to "call upon Him," and especially to "cry unto the Lord with her voice." But she had been taught from infancy that "none but the elect should pray; nor even they until regenerated by sovereign grace;" and that "no woman should pray or speak in a public a.s.sembly." But a heart overwhelmed with a crushing sense of sin at length broke out, almost against her decision, and cried, "G.o.d be merciful to me a sinner!" and such hope of relief sprang up while she prayed as to settle the question of prayer; and thence on for weeks all the relief she found was in prayer and confession; a few crumbs of comfort to encourage her to persevere in seeking; for she began to wonder why she had not found peace, when she had sought so long and tried to give up all for Christ.

One day, in the retirement of her room, her mirror revealed a gayety of apparel that struck her as unsuitable for a poor, guilty sinner. The fashions of that day were very profuse in ornamentation; and as she saw herself in the gla.s.s, her eyes red and heavy with weeping, and yet her attire as gay and vain as if prepared for a ball, she felt sure that her mode of dress had all this time been a hindrance to her; and she then and there concluded to reduce all to plainness, much like the people who had led her to penitence. The pride of dress and equipage seemed now to be about the last idol to give up, and, all of her own counsel, she did the work very thoroughly; and as to her abundant jewelry, the result of her spontaneous zeal was rather ludicrous. "Determined that it should never prove a snare to any other poor soul as it had to her," she pa.s.sed it all under the hammer until there was nothing left but unseemly lumps of gold and silver; the precious stones were utterly demolished.

From that work this. .h.i.therto gaudy maiden came out as plain as a Quakeress, and hastened to the Methodist prayer meeting. Seeing her thus evidently taught of the Holy Spirit, they took hold of her case with new courage as she bowed with them crying for mercy. The prayers of the early Methodists were something wonderful, and this broken-hearted penitent drank into their wrestling spirit. They claimed for her the "exceeding great and precious promises," with mighty faith; she claimed these promises with them. They took hold on Jesus; she put her hand with theirs into His with a strong and steady grip, and He accepted her.

The conversion of Elizabeth was instantaneous, and exceedingly clear and powerful, and its a.s.surance overwhelming. Her long night was at once turned into day, and that clear daylight was also a blaze of glory. Her joy was ecstatic. Her tall form, which had been gaudily adorned, but now attired for the meek and lowly Saviour, was at times prostrated by divine power, and her regenerated soul filled with the rapture of heaven. Night and day, for weeks, her only relief from ecstasy was by settling into solid peace, thus alternating from the quiet valley of "peace that pa.s.seth understanding" to the glory-crowned hilltops of "joy unspeakable."

After a sufficient time had elapsed to demonstrate the genuineness and unfading glory of her experience, Elizabeth wrote home a plain account of it, concealing nothing. This was the astounding and alienating letter that so stirred up things at the Cove.

CHAPTER III.

THAT ALARMING MESSAGE.

The Wards, at the Cove, continued to be much troubled over Elizabeth's letter. Had a note or a messenger announced her serious illness, or her elopement or sudden death, the first pang would have terminated in some sort of relief, or at least a breathing place; but this letter was suffocating, and the dense fog seemed to grow darker as it stretched into the future. "A religious fanatic!" "A Methodist lunatic!" "Has our darling set out upon such a life?"

"I'm afraid it will kill your father; it struck him dumb. I can't draw him into any conversation about her; and he is so angry!" Thus the troubled mother would talk and cry. The sisters and brothers listen to her, and, without comprehending "the prospect so awful in Betsey's future life,"

would keep dumb, like "daddy," and cry, like "mammy."

Finding no relief at home, Mrs. Ward consulted their aged parson, "Priest Huntington," and placed the ominous letter in his hands; and he took the troublesome doc.u.ment home for professional a.n.a.lysis. It is not to be supposed that the Holy Spirit left this letter to pa.s.s through such a crucible alone. The experience it told was substantially His work, and the hand that wrote it was not wholly without His guidance; and now the cultured mind which examined it was that of a logical a.n.a.lyst, however strong his prejudice. The old parson was struck with its simplicity and soundness, and hastened to the Cove to "p.r.o.nounce Miss Elizabeth's experience genuine, and even wonderful," and that he believed her to be "one of G.o.d's chosen vessels to bear witness of His sovereign grace."

So favorable an opinion from such an authority greatly relieved the apprehensions of the family; all but the incensed father, who would neither talk nor allow others to talk to him about the absent one for several weeks.

All these were not only precious weeks to Elizabeth, but lengthened out a most valuable epoch of her life. At length the wily parson succeeded in getting to the stormy heart of this enraged and unhappy father, and portrayed in glowing colors the clearness of Miss Elizabeth's "effectual call" and "blessed hope," and managed to bridge over "that awful slough of Methodism" by descanting gravely upon some of the "mysterious leadings of sovereign grace." "And now, if our dear lamb of the Saviour can be rescued from those deluded people and carefully instructed in 'the doctrines of grace,' what an ornament she would be to our church with such a brilliant experience, and such 'a burning and shining light!'"

Whether the hard heart of that father relented, or whether, weary of brooding over his disappointed hopes of a worldly sort, his pride saw prospect of indulgence in another direction, we leave it for subsequent events to determine. The kind parson was successful, and Elizabeth was soon ordered to return home.

CHAPTER IV.

ORDER OBEYED.