CHAPTER VI.
GREAT VICTORIES.
Seven months of despair had now worn slowly away. This poor supposed "reprobate" had all that time been buffeted by Satan without mercy. She had wasted to a skeleton. Her large, sharp eye had become heavy and lusterless, and her ruddy cheek pale and sunken, and every expression sad and hopeless; and the "enemy of all righteousness" got into a hurry to secure his prize, and brought all his arts to bear upon the suggestion of suicide!
Such a temptation aroused her to a sense of her real danger—no longer the victim of ingenious devices to harbor gloomy forebodings, but a wretched sinner, about to destroy soul and body in hell, on the verge of destruction to character, and all good influences by an act of her own! Desperately, in spite of her dread of prayer, she cried to God against that dreadful temptation, and instantly she had full victory over it. The eyes, long dried in the desert of despair, were moistened with tears of wonder and gratitude. Astonished at such a clear answer to prayer, she prayed again for deliverance from Satan's power and all his enchantments, and they fled away like the shadow of a cloud. Her dungeon flamed with light, before which the horrible decrees also vanished, falling into line, and following their author to the land of darkness, never to trouble her more.
The light shone on, more and more; and although at dead of night, her room seemed to her to shine above the brightness of the sun at noonday; and the doctrines of free grace seemed to flash about her with transcendent glory, until investing her entire being. She knew she was not a reprobate; for God had heard her desperate cry against that greatest of sins. She saw in God's own light the blessed assurance that Jesus died for her and for all; and in driving away the enemy and the dense cloud of error, that had long shrouded her dungeon in Egyptian darkness, she clearly saw glorious demonstrations of divine clemency in store for her. She deplored her unbelief, and humbly sought forgiveness and full restoration; and there, and then, by faith in Jesus, she accepted Him again as her Saviour.
Instantly her raptures returned, with more than their former power and glory, and she went off into a perfect gale of ecstasy. Such sounds had never been heard in that mansion before, and the family hastened to learn the cause. There lay the wasted form upon what they thought to be the bed of death. Her thin arms were stretched upward, and her pale hands came together with frequency and energy quite remarkable. Her countenance seemed lighted up with an unearthly glow, and her words were ready and full of heavenly felicity, and uttered with a strength and sweetness of voice quite beyond her power. All these evidences, added to the fact that their tender and anxious questions remained unanswered, and their presence and weeping seemed entirely unnoticed, struck them as demonstrations that "the angels had come for poor, dear Betsey," and that in her triumphant flight from her cruel sufferings "she had already passed beyond them, and would never speak to them again."
After some time, however, she seemed to them to have been brought back by their lamentations and self-accusations, and, hushing them to silent attention, she assured them that this was "not dying," but "living, and preparing to live," by a return of her first love and a glorious victory over temptation and error.
From that blessed night her convalescence was much more rapid than anyone had thought possible. Peace of mind is a marvelous restorer, especially when despondency has driven health away.
On a beautiful morning, a few weeks after, Elizabeth was agreeably surprised by an unexpected announcement made at the door of her room. She had had remarkable liberty that morning in conducting family prayer, which by consent of her parents she resumed soon after her recent victory. Her father came to her door, and, in a voice which sounded so much like the good days gone by, announced his plan for "a short ride." Her own horse was at the block; and as the strong arms of her father placed her in the saddle the noble beast gave signs of joy over her returning health.
The horseman by her side, in the ride of that and several following mornings, seemed agitated by conflicting emotions, yet making special efforts to be social and attentive. O, how she enjoyed those morning rides! Yet now and then she felt, though she could scarcely tell why, that a strange agitation, embarrassed her father's spirits. Was he trying to muster courage to acknowledge his wrong in persecuting her? Was he really "under concern" for his own soul? or was he unhappy because she was not more gay and worldly? It was useless for her to conjecture; he was a reticent man, and allowed no one to meddle with his thoughts.
She had now nearly regained her usual strength, and the time drew near for her to attend church. One morning, after a pleasant ride of unusual length, drawing near home, the father broke out in tremulous tones: "Now, Betsey, you won't go with the Methodists any more, will you? I can't allow it—no more at all. I command you to have nothing more to do with that people."
They had reached the block, and the agitated girl hastened to her room, and most of the day and evening she was seeking the "wisdom that cometh from above." She easily settled all questions but one. She saw clearly what system of doctrines she must subscribe to and advocate and exemplify; what means of grace she needed and must have and honor by her attendance; and she knew where her heart centered, and where her covenant vows must be taken and fellowship cultivated and enjoyed. All was plain as noonday except her father's commands and her duty to him. This last problem she laid before the Lord; and no sooner was it fully committed to him than the Holy Spirit quoted the filial duty with a peculiar emphasis to her heart: "Obey your parents in the Lord." "He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me."
Her line of duty was now fully decided, cost what it might. Saturday morning they were again in their saddles, and side by side, beginning a long ride in silence. Elizabeth was desirous of telling her story and kindly explaining her views of duty, and, obtaining permission, she began at the beginning and rehearsed the dealings of God with her up to that hour. She then declared her filial affection and her readiness to obey implicitly in all matters where duty to God and conscience would permit. Finally, she appealed to her father "not to hinder or embarrass her, seeing the Lord had so marvelously rescued her from the power of the enemy and snatched her from the very jaws of death and ruin."
All this time the stern man had kept silence. They were nearing home. He opened his mouth and firmly told her that he "should at once and finally disinherit her if she went to Methodist meeting again!"
No more was said. Elizabeth that day looked upon all the familiar objects about that dear old home of her childhood as no longer hers in any sense. Her pets, especially her noble horse; her home, in which she was born and reared; the sick room, where she had suffered unutterable horrors and gained such memorable victories; her own dear room, where she was finally to spend that, her last night, as having any right there. She came, at last, late in the evening, to sweet slumbers in the "peace that passeth understanding."
Early Sunday morning she was plainly attired and slowly walking toward her beloved church, a plain chapel in a part of the city of Middletown near two miles from the Cove. There she feasted upon the word and publicly gave in her name as a probationer in the Methodist Episcopal Church.
From that moment she was afloat—out on the broad sea of life, without a home; a disowned, disinherited girl! She left home this morning, a comfortable, stately, dear old home of wealth, elegance, and affection. She must not return to it to-night. She was but yesterday an heiress. To-day she is poor, a wanderer in the earth. But she has at last a church-home, and her life really begins to-day. Father and mother have cast her off for her religion, but "the Lord hath taken her up." She is not without friends. Several doors are open for her. Almost before she knows she is homeless she has resumed her work of teaching and has a delightful home in a Methodist family.
Thus favorably situated for study, she takes up the doctrines of the Gospel as believed and taught by the Methodists, and makes rapid proficiency. Her pastor, one of the flaming heralds of early Methodism in New England, furnished her with the best of reading, and all her associates in the studies and active work of Zion wondered at the rapid progress of the disinherited girl. Little could they realize how vividly those doctrines shone in her heart as she came out of the "fiery furnace," and how intensely interested she now was in principles which had cost her so much, yet were worth, in her account, infinitely more, and well deserved to be studied and propagated.
A young man belonging to the Methodists of that city now enters into our narrative. He is above the ordinary size, about twenty-eight years of age, and some four or five years before this was clearly converted under the preaching of Bishop Asbury. He also is a teacher, and a very sound, logical student of Methodist doctrines and usages.
It is not many months before it is noticed that a mutual attachment seems to be springing up between this young man and Elizabeth, above the ordinary sympathies of teachers and church classmates. And as they had been acquainted from childhood, and fully understood each other's history and families, and were members together of a society of plain people, they did not consider a long courtship necessary. They were both of Yankee stock, both escaping from Calvinism and ardently attached to Methodism, both studious and competent to teach, and loved to teach, and both were active workers in the church they ardently loved.
So Joshua Arnold, aged twenty-nine, and Elizabeth Ward, aged twenty-one, were united in holy matrimony in the charming month of May, the last year of the eighteenth century. Thus closed the maiden life and homeless loneliness of the disinherited daughter.
She had been ruthlessly turned out of a stately mansion which she loved as her birthplace and childhood home, disinherited from her rightful heirship to several thousands, and disowned by her family, whose well-being she had faithfully labored to promote, and all for no fault of hers, but wholly for a matter of conscience and principle. But in less than a year she was settled in life in a home of which she was mistress, with a worthy husband, of church membership and affinities like her own, and in the free enjoyment of church privileges and holy fellowships, for which her persecuted soul had "panted as the hart panteth for the water brooks."