THE NEW LIFE IN CHRIST.
1840-1841.
I.
A Memorable Experience. Letters to her Cousin. Goes to Richmond as a
Teacher. Mr. Persico's School. Letters.
Miss Payson was now in her twenty-first year, a period which she always looked back to as a turning-point in her spiritual history. The domestic influences that encompassed her childhood, her early associations, and the books of devotion which she read, all conspired to imbue her with an earnest sense of divine things, and while yet a young girl, as we have seen, she publicly devoted herself to the service of her God and Saviour. For several years her piety, if marked by no special features, was still regarded by her young friends, and by all who knew her, as of a decided character. But during the general religious interest in the winter of 1837-8, even while absorbed in solicitude for others, she began herself to question its reality. "For some months I had no hope that I was a Christian, and pride made me go on just as if I felt myself perfectly safe. Nothing could at that time have made me willing to have any eye a witness to my daily struggles." And yet she "often longed for the sympathy and assistance of Christian friends," and to her unwillingness to confide in them she afterwards attributed much of the suffering that followed. "I do not know exactly how I passed out of that season, but my school commenced in April, and I became so interested in it that I had less time to think of and to watch myself. The next winter most of my scholars were deeply impressed by divine things, and, of course, I could not look on without having my own heart touched. It was my privilege to spend many delightful weeks in watching the progress of minds earnestly seeking the way of life and early consecrating themselves to their Saviour." [1] But after a while a severe reaction set in and in the course of the summer she became careless in her religious habits, shrank from the Lord's table as a "place of absolute torture," and while spending a fortnight in Boston in the fall, entirely omitted all exercises of private devotion.
She had now reached a crisis which was to decide her course for life. During the winter of 1839-40, she passed through very deep and harrowing exercises of soul. Her spiritual nature was shaken to its foundation, and she could say with the Psalmist, Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O Lord. For several months she was in a state similar to that which the old divines depict so vividly as being "under conviction." Her sense of sin, and of her own unworthiness in the sight of God, grew more and more intense and oppressive. At times she abandoned all hope, accused herself of having played the hypocrite, and fancied she was given over to hardness of heart. At length she sought counsel of her pastor and confided to him her trouble, but he "did not know exactly what to do with me." In the midst of her distress, and as its effect, no doubt, she was taken ill and confined to her room, where in solitude she passed several weeks seeking rest and finding none. "Sometimes I tried to pray, but this only increased my distress and made me cry out for annihilation to free me from the agony which seemed insupportable." With a single interval of comparative indifference, this state of mind continued for nearly four months. She thus describes it:
It was in vain that I sought the Lord in any of the lofty pathways through which my heart wished to go. At last I found it impossible to carry on the struggle any longer alone. I would gladly have put myself at the feet of a little child, if by so doing I could have found peace. I felt so guilty and the character of God appeared so perfect in its purity and holiness, that I knew not which way to turn. The sin which distressed me most of all was the rejection of the Saviour. This haunted me constantly and made me fly first to one thing and then another, in the hope of finding somewhere the peace which I would not accept from Him. It was at this time that I kept reading over the first twelve chapters of Doddridge's "Rise and Progress,"—the rest of the book I abhorred. So great was my agony that I can only wonder at the goodness of Him who held my life in His hands, and would not permit me in the height of my despair to throw myself away.
It was in this height of despair that thoughts of the infinite grace and love of Christ, which she says she had hitherto repelled, began to irradiate her soul. A sermon on His ability to save "unto the uttermost" deeply affected her. [2] "While listening to it my weary spirit rested itself, and I thought, 'surely it can not be wrong to think of the Saviour, although He is not mine.' With this conclusion I gave myself up to admire, to love and to praise Him, to wonder why I had never done so before, and to hope that all the great congregation around me were joining with me in acknowledging Him to be chief among ten thousand and the One altogether lovely." On going home she could at first scarcely believe in her own identity, the feeling of peace and love to God and to all the world was so unlike the turbulent emotions that had long agitated her soul. "From this time my mind went slowly onward, examining the way step by step, trembling and afraid, yet filled with a calm contentment which made all the dealings of God with me appear just right. I know myself to be perfectly helpless. I can not promise to do or to be anything; but I do want to put everything else aside, and to devote myself entirely to the service of Christ."
Her account of this memorable experience is dated August 28, 1840. "While writing it," she adds, "I have often laid aside my pen, to sit and think over in silent wonder the way in which the Lord has led me."
How in later years she regarded certain features of this experience, is not fully known. The record passed at once out of her hands, and until after her death was never seen by anyone, excepting the friend for whose eye it was written. Many of its details had, probably, faded entirely from her memory. It can not be doubted, however, that she would have judged her previous state much less severely, would hardly have charged it with hypocrisy, or denied that the Saviour had been graciously leading her, and that she had some real love to Him, before as well as after this crisis. So much may be inferred from the record itself and from the narrative in the preceding chapter. Her tender interest in the spiritual welfare of her friends and pupils, the high tone of religious sentiment that marks her early writings, the books she delighted in, her filial devotion, the absolute sincerity of her character, all forbid any other conclusion. [3] The indications, too, are very plain that her morbidly-sensitive, melancholy temperament had much to do with this experience. Her account of it shows, also, that her mind was unhappily affected by certain false notions of the Christian life and ordinances then, and still, more or less prevalent—notions based upon a too narrow and legal conception of the Gospel. Hence, her shrinking from the Lord's table as a place of "torture," instead of regarding it in its true character, as instituted on purpose to feed hungry souls, like her own, with bread from heaven. But for all that, the experience was a blessed reality and, as these pages will attest, wrought a lasting change in her religious life. No doubt the Spirit of God was leading her through all its dark and terrible mazes. It virtually ended a conflict which the intensely proud elements of her nature rendered inevitable, if she was to become a true heroine of faith—the conflict between her Master's will and her own. Her Master conquered, and henceforth to her dying hour His will was the sovereign law of her existence, and its sweetest joy also.