Elizabeth: the Disinherited Daughter Part 4

CHAPTER IX.

AS A CAMP MEETING WORKER.

When health and distance would permit, Mrs. Elizabeth could be depended upon as a tent holder and laborer at every camp meeting. She had a superior tent, and it was in its place and order from the first to the last hour.

It was a little odd that Mr. Arnold had very little camp meeting zeal, when his wife had so much. He would go when entirely convenient, enjoy a few sermons and some pleasant conversations with friends, when he "must go home, see to things, and regain the rest he had lost." "Mother and the children were sufficient to see to the tent, and enjoyed such mode of life better than he did."

With her the camp meeting was neither a place of recreation nor weariness.

Its single object was to save souls. True to this purpose, she forecast for weeks to obtain as tent guests thoughtful persons of honorable character whom she could bring and hold under the influence of the meeting until they were converted.

For one meeting a Presbyterian deacon, who lived in a neglected neighborhood, was induced to bring his children and near a dozen more, all young people nearly or quite grown, and stay through the meeting. Of course these guests would help stock the tent, and would feel bound in courtesy to attend the meetings of the tent as well as preaching at the stand, and the good deacon have to do his share in conducting these tent meetings. When the deacon returned home he carried with him a beautiful flock of the Saviour's lambs; and while the most of his own children joined his church, several miles away, the rest of these lambs were gathered into a Methodist fold at their own schoolhouse, the nucleus of a church which now has a good church edifice and has long had a prosperous existence. It is worthy of remark that to this day this church is next neighbor to the one founded soon after upon the work of the exhorters before alluded to.

CHAPTER X.

"THE CHAMBER ON THE WALL."

The active part of the married life of Joshua and Elizabeth Arnold was over forty years. During that period their house--as may be inferred from preceding pages--was the ever welcome home for the itinerant preacher.

The presiding elder and the preacher in charge often met there to counsel together. The junior preacher, who was usually a single man, made it one of his homes, where he came to rest and study. The "best room," with its fireplace, bed, table, etc., was occupied more by the preachers than by all other company, and was known as "the preachers' room." Both circuit preachers frequently pa.s.sed a night there together in their rounds; but the senior, having a home somewhere, would speak of this as the junior's home, and of himself as "his guest," as well as the guest of the family.

Sometimes all three of the itinerants would meet there for days at a time.

Such were seasons of great joy all around, and of some little pleasantry, although cautiously indulged in in those days.

On one such occasion, as the three preachers and the family were sitting around the large fireplace on a winter evening, and conversation had about quieted to a lull, one of the elders hunched the junior, and with a significant wink suggested to him to ask counsel of Sister Arnold, who was busy sewing by the candle-stand. Now the said junior was a very promising boy of nineteen, but, withal, a little too boyish to quite suit the ideal of this grave woman. So while he stated the question she listened with her attention mostly upon her work. "Mother Arnold, I have, as our Discipline requires, counseled with these my seniors upon a very important question."

She glances at him very slightly. "It is the question of marriage." Another glance, which is enough to wilt a boy of ordinary courage, and instantly her eye is on her work again. He rallies, however, and begins again: "I am advised by several to marry, and am thinking seriously of doing so. I now desire your advice." Slowly her spectacles mount to her forehead, her keen black eye seems to look right through him, and she slowly and gravely replies, "Well, my advice is, that you wait until you get to be a man." The effect of such a shot may be better imagined than told; not only there, but elsewhere, as long as he stayed on that circuit. He did wait, and in waiting made a more judicious choice, and one of the sons of that wise marriage is now one of our bishops.

Severe as this sounds, it was a word in season, and fully met the approval of the senior brethren, and of the junior himself, who greatly venerated her, and ran a very successful, although short, race, and left an excellent influence behind him.

Eternity alone will fully declare how valuable were the counsels of this "Aquila and Priscilla," who in this itinerant's home took many a young "Apollos" and "expounded unto him the way of the Lord more perfectly."

But while nothing Mr. and Mrs. Arnold did for the meetings at their home or anywhere excused them from personal activity in those meetings, no pains or expense in entertaining the preachers were ever a subst.i.tute for the regular support of the Gospel by prompt and liberal payment through the stewards.

But beyond the regular "quarterage" they appreciated the need of "presents." And probably, in the forty-two years of their active business life together, seldom, if ever, did a Gospel minister make a pastoral visit at their home and go away without carrying with him some little token of the veneration and love there cherished for his holy office and work, or of remembrance of his lone family, so much of the time deprived of his presence, and of many delicacies which he had among his people far away.

The "fatted calf," lamb, or fowl would in many places be dressed for his feasting, while the family at home, in some inferior quarters, were having rather dry fare, if not scanty fare; the thought of which would often mar the pleasure of his most sumptuous entertainments.

Economical, not to say penurious, stewards demanded an "account of everything given to the preachers;" but Mrs. Arnold insisted that besides salary matters presents were needed, and it was the privilege of that house to give them at pleasure, and the left hand must not know what the right hand conferred. Often the minister himself knew nothing of it until some one of his family searched the box of his carriage seat, which they were not slow to do when it came from certain parts of the circuit--some article of provision for the table, common and plenty enough in the cellar or dairy of the farm, but not certain to be flush in the parsonage; some tidbit or condiment to humor a delicate appet.i.te; some choice fruits or knickknacks for the children; some material from the sheep or flax of the farm spun by her own diligent fingers to be made up in the lonely parsonage for the wife or children, or underwear for the man of G.o.d. When the minister's family was within reach of this very busy mother in Israel she would often relieve the loneliness, and sometimes the wants, experienced in his "long rounds"

by her visits to the sacred rooms, which in those early years of Methodism were oftener parts of some kind member's home than a regular "parsonage"

or "rectory." So when the weary itinerant would return and find that his family had not been entirely neglected in his absence he would take new courage to pursue his toilsome way.

As already intimated, Mrs. Arnold usually made the "junior preacher" of the circuit an object of motherly care. He was generally a single man in those early days, and often scarcely out of his boyhood. Many a worn garment was overhauled and repaired; many a pair of new warm socks or mittens was laid with new underwear upon his pillow.

Although for several weeks of the year he and his horse had made the Arnold place a pilgrim's rest, never was a dollar paid the place for board, nor was the circuit permitted to charge him a farthing upon his salary for that or the presents he had received in that welcome home.

The junior preacher seldom served the same circuit more than one year of his apprenticeship. When he left this, his favorite home of rest, of study, and of repairs, the parting scene brought tears from all eyes; and long did the echo of those loving adieus ring in all ears, especially as uttered by that matronly voice, "Do well, and farewell. G.o.d bless you!"

CHAPTER XI.

MRS. ELIZABETH ARNOLD AS A MOTHER.

Eight children were given to this pious couple--five sons and three daughters. Two of the daughters were recalled between the ages of two and four. Lovely and much loved, they were still resigned to Him who demanded their return, and that, too, without a murmur.

The remaining daughter and all the five sons were converted in the morning of life and joined the Church so dear to the parents, and the two younger sons became ministers of the same, and all the six lived to advanced age.

The writer once overheard Mrs. Arnold answer the anxious inquiries of a young mother who had several little ones she was yearning to see early saved: "O, sister, it is all of the Lord. But it is true that He has wonderfully blessed our family altar, the visits of our dear ministers, and the meetings in our house for many years. And as you are a mother, and seem anxious to learn a mother's duty and privilege, I will frankly give you my experience. I did not play much with, our children, nor caress them much. I hadn't time, and I didn't wish them to be babies too long nor waste much of their precious morning of life in play. I did not flatter nor praise them very much. I was afraid of fostering pride. But I have instructed them in our glorious doctrines with diligence and all the skill I could command.

But their early salvation and lifelong piety and usefulness seemed to be laid on my heart by divine power, and the spirit of prayer for them was one of the abiding influences of the Holy Ghost. G.o.d had plainly answered my prayers for my brothers and sisters till they were all converted, and would not my heavenly Father answer my prayer for my own offspring? O, sister, it was no task for me to pray for my children. My life was in it.

"When I fed them I prayed the Lord to give them the bread and the water of eternal life. When I took off their garments I asked the Lord to strip them of sin; and as I clothed them, that He would clothe them with the garments of salvation. When I laid them down to sleep I prayed that they might be fully prepared for the bed of death, and to sleep at last in Christian graves. And when I took them up from their slumbers, how earnestly I prayed that they might have part in the resurrection of the just! And, my dear young sister, I was not content with prayers for my children, nor with our family prayers with them; but as they grew old enough I took each one to my own little prayer room with me, and poured out my soul for that one. And I seldom retired to my pillow until I had "tucked up" my sleeping little ones, given them a word of counsel, and offered a prayer for them; and I had no trouble in getting their wakeful attention. I a.s.sure you, dear sister, that a Christian mother's advantage just here is very great. Don't let any hurry or weariness rob you of that hold upon the hearts of your children."

CHAPTER XII.

DOUBLE DILIGENCE.

Mrs. Elizabeth Arnold was a very busy woman. During the forty-two years of her mature active life she could almost be said to have accomplished double work. Both her conscience and her nature seemed to be all alive to the rules of our Discipline: "Never be unemployed;" "Never be triflingly employed." Her large size, large brain, and preponderance of bilious temperament seemed to call for much sleep and moderate motion. But her motions were quick and efficient, and her sleep could not have averaged over six hours in twenty-four. But eighteen hours a day could not satisfy her longing for "the improvement of her precious time." So she managed, when alone or not engaged in reading or conversation, to keep up what at a little distance might be taken for mere humming, but what was really intelligent singing, simultaneous with the most active work of her hands.

It might begin with a hymn, but would glide on beyond into her own words of praise or prayer in impromptu music. This free, original singing was the settled habit of her most driving business hours, and was not annoying to others. But how those black eyes would sparkle and those florid cheeks glow with heavenly light as her whole soul seemed absorbed in this spontaneous singing, while the work of her hands went briskly on, leaving in speed or finish no mark of absence of mind or false motion.

But this was not her only method of doubling her diligence. Her experience and wisdom brought her many inquirers after the truth, and demands upon her conversational powers were many and imperative. Yet those busy, provident hands, long acquainted with needles, seemed to make them fly and click in about even race, with the mind and the tongue, "Diligence in business,"

"singing with grace in the heart," and "conversation seasoned with grace"

mingled in her methods of "redeeming the time."

PART III.

_RETIREMENT_.

CHAPTER I.

HOMES OF EARLY METHODISTS.

From the earthly point of observation how sad is the breaking up of Christian homes! The genuinely hospitable homes of the early Methodists were peculiar. There were elements in their hospitality which do not quite find their equal in our day. The old circuit system set everything in motion. Not only were the "circuit riders" circulating everywhere, but quarterly meetings, "two days' meetings," and even regular circuit preaching, whether on a week day or Sunday, stirred up the people. And as they were scattered in residence, and traveling was slow, every comfortable, hospitable Methodist residence became not only a free stopping place, but a house of entertainment, where both soul and body found refreshment, and the one just as free and cordial as the other. The guest did not embarra.s.s the host or hostess, for nothing but plain fare was expected; and as to spiritual refreshment, he left a blessing behind him, and with rekindled joy went on his way rejoicing. So also it was when his turn came to entertain.

The homes of the early Methodists, especially in the country and in the rural villages, were much more permanent than in this day--not rented, but mostly owned by their occupants--and every year seemed to add to the sacredness of these hospitable old abodes. The trees, the watering trough, the well sweep, the plain old buildings, the very ground, seemed consecrated to G.o.d and his cause.