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 document home for professional analysis. It is not to be supposed that the Holy Spirit left this letter to pass 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 analyst, however strong his prejudice. The old parson was struck with its simplicity and soundness, and hastened to the Cove to "pronounce Miss Elizabeth's experience genuine, and even wonderful," and that he believed her to be "one of God'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.