[Footnote 1: Rev. Thomas Hubbard.]
But besides these retired neighbors, their retreat being but five miles from their old farm and whilom cottage chapel, several of the village residents had long been camp meeting and quarterly meeting associates. So, with a dutiful son and near-by church, this superannuated couple, surrounded by congenial society, surrendered their beloved public life and sought an evening of rest, in which to ripen for heaven.
Hardly could aged people be happier or more quiet and free from worldly care. The storms of life were past; the crowd of business, the rush of labor, the study of complicated lines of duty—all these have gone by like a storm, and left a great calm. Still they find some little to do with what little strength they can command and the limited income left them.
CHAPTER II.
JOSHUA ARNOLD.
No life experience of Elizabeth would seem at all complete without a chapter giving a somewhat connected view of her companion, near a half century by her side, in her toils, liberality, and church work. Did she, when driven by persecution from her father's house, take up, under stress of calamity, an inferior associate for life? Let us see. If, as many claim, the wisest matches are founded on contrast, this must have been par excellence. For if we except their large size and mutual endowment of sound common sense, there was very little natural similarity. In Connecticut the farms of the Arnolds and the Wards joined, and yet they were not intimate as families, for there was, for that day, too great disparity in property and style. Both were moral and intelligent, but the large Arnold family on the hill, though in comfortable circumstances, did not train in the same "set" with the elegant establishment at the Cove.
Of the numerous family (of almost giant size) of Ebenezer and Anna Miller Arnold there were only two sons. Ebenezer, among the eldest, had the ancestral name, took to a mariner's life, was a few years a sea captain, and lies at the bottom of the ocean. Joshua was the youngest of the family, the almost idol of his parents, and of a house full of lusty sisters, who vied with one another which should teach him most and secure most of his confidence. So he lived on until nearly thirty a bachelor. Such opportunities as were afforded the common farmers' boys of New England in the eighteenth century young Joshua diligently improved, and became a close student, and well qualified as a teacher of common schools of his day. His specialties were mathematics, penmanship, bookkeeping, business science and forms, and navigation. And he continued to do more or less in this profession until fifty years of age. He was converted among the first fruits of Methodist labors in that part of New England.
Then, every Methodist studied closely into her doctrines, and this young man became qualified to state clearly, and ably defend, all that was peculiar to that Church. The cast of his mind was logical, candid, patient—he was never inclined to hasty conclusions. He loved to dig deep, collect strong evidence, and wait till conclusions were sound and inevitable.
His brethren soon marked him for the ministry, and so advised; but, with his great modesty and high opinions of a divine call, he was not then, and never was, satisfied that he had such an essential individual commission. Without a full consciousness of duty in the line of that awful responsibility, this pious young man refused to look in that direction. He, however, cherished a high sense of the honor involved in the confidence of the Church, and felt impelled to lay himself out to do his best as a private member.
Under the ministry of such able Methodist preachers as Asbury, Jesse Lee, and George Roberts, young Joshua had imbibed the main doctrines of theology, and set out in earnest to "search the Scriptures," both "for correction" if wrong, and for confirmation in the truth he had received and experienced. Thus fairly started on the King's highway of truth, he became profoundly interested in Bible study; and continued both the study and the intense love of it through life. He dug in this mine more than a third of a century without any human commentary, and found, to his great joy, that the poet had struck it: "God is his own interpreter, and He will make it plain." So diligently did he search for the "interpretation of Scripture by Scripture," that he largely learned the doctrinal Scriptures by heart, and also book, chapter, and verse; and to family and friends he was "both concordance and commentary."