CHAPTER III.
ELIZABETH AS AN EVANGELISTIC LABORER.
Rejoicing greatly with "the ninety and nine," the pious zeal of Elizabeth wept over "the lost sheep in the wilderness," and she longed to go out among the mountains as a personal coworker with the chief Shepherd and bring them to the fold. In fact, her ideal of the destitute regions she had dreamed of was substantially answered by territory near her home, and providentially brought to her notice.
On "Washington Mountain" were several neighborhoods of irreligious settlers at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Our itinerant ministers had occasionally passed; over the foothills and given off a message or two among these neglected inhabitants, but in the main they were destitute of Gospel truth and the means of grace. Elizabeth had not been more than a year or two in the adjoining valley before she more clearly saw that evangelical labor, as well as religious privileges, had providentially called the family to their present location.
True, she was a woman, and the Master had chosen "men to preach," and "women to guide the house," and win souls in a quiet manner. But she could attend faithfully to household affairs, and also do something as a private member to lead sinners to Jesus, even though miles away on the dark mountain; for she was an expert rider, very spry and strong, and only thirty years of age, and had a fleet, easy horse that could climb those slopes and fly across those table-lands and be back home in a few hours.
So, in the name and fear of the Lord, this cultured woman began among the rough settlers of Washington Mountain as a religious visitor from, house to house. At first her visits were between 1 P.M. and sunset; but as the people became awakened, and gathered in groups, requiring more exhortation and wrestling prayer, she spent more time with them, frequently mounting her boy behind her for company, and always reaching home before she slept. Local preachers and exhorters followed up the work. The circuit preachers, by an occasional visit, gathered the lambs into folds, and thus the fields were cultivated, while this pioneer woman searched out other destitute groups and introduced them to Gospel privileges and blessings.
In this rapid riding and visiting, as a true shepherdess, hunting up the lost, she cautiously occupied mostly fair afternoons, and on an average, in moderate weather, only one or two afternoons a week. But in a few years even that amount of time, well employed, produced glorious results. Her work in this line was somewhat like that of a modern "Bible reader," only that it was much more rapid. What would her father have thought, when teaching his proud daughter horsemanship, if he had been told what use she would make of it?
What a contrast between the riding done by this woman now, and a dozen years ago in the same county! In skill, and speed of movement, and grace of attitude she is much the same; but how different her dress, her countenance, her aims and hopes! Her father then was proud of his darling; now, how mortified and angry would he be could he see her spring to her saddle and start off toward Washington Mountain, in search of souls! "God seeth not as man seeth." Then he beheld the "proud afar off," but now "giveth grace to the humble," and crowneth her labors with divine approval and success, while he giveth to her heart the "peace that passeth understanding," and the sweet promise that "they that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars forever and ever!"
What Mrs. Elizabeth did to save souls on the mountain was only in the line of extraordinary labors, and was not made an excuse for neglecting any of her ordinary church duties. As before observed, her visits being mainly in fair weather, and only once or twice a week, except in times of revival, she counted them as many people do one or two weekly recreations, not allowed to interfere with anything else.
Indeed, they did not satisfy her own zeal for extraordinary work. She scattered some of the young people of the mountain among the Methodist families of Lenox and Pittsfield as domestic help, greatly to their advantage. She invited her church associates to her house for extra prayer meetings, for the special benefit of serious persons from the mountain and other neglected neighborhoods nearer her home, thus bringing them under strong religious influences. Of course all the young laborers from the mountain, working for families not too far off, would want to attend such meetings and see their kindred, and their employers would encourage them and lead them to faithful cross-bearing on such occasions.
She even set up a private school for neglected children, and her church classmates put some of their own children into it "to help leaven it," as she suggested, and it became, in answer to their united prayers, a revival school. One family[1] who thus assisted her had two little boys converted in her school, right among the ragged, ignorant children, and they grew so strong in the work of these daily prayer meetings that one of them[2] became an able itinerant minister, and the other,[3] in the wilderness to which both families subsequently moved, became a class leader, having for several years some of these same schoolmates (then, like himself, in midlife) in his class, and even Mr. and Mrs. Arnold themselves and several of their children! So glorious are often the compensations of true zeal, even in "the life that now is."
[Footnote 1: That of Thomas Hubbard.]
[Footnote 2: Rev. Elijah B. Hubbard.]
[Footnote 3: Jabez Hubbard.]