During those terrible riots in New York, in which so many of her race fell victims to the mob, she fled to her white friends for protection. Some time after this, when she was speaking of her faith and her trust in the Lord, an Irish Roman Catholic taunted her with having failed to trust in the Lord at that time. Her reply was very characteristic. "Did you ever read in the Old Testament of a man named Lot?" she asked. "Well, Lot showed his faith by running away, and so did Aunt Susan!" In relating to me this story, she laughed very heartily, and concluded by saying: "Yer see as I understan's it, Lot showed his faith by leavin' his home and flyin' accordin' to the command of der Lord, and Aunt Susan did jes de same, fur I showed my faith by usin' de means de Lord hed appinted, and not temptin' de Lord by stayin' behind. Jes so."
Old Susan's "family" consisted of her aged mother, at that time in her hundred and first year, her dog Prince, her cat Tom, her hen Toby; a more aged and decrepit family were surely never before gathered under one roof. If I had been told that old Dinah's age was a hundred and twenty, from appearances I should have been inclined to believe it. Smoking was the sole recreation which years had left her. Susan would fill her pipe at intervals during the day, and after using it, Dinah would sit gazing vacantly around her until it was refilled and placed in her hand. The dog, proportionately to canine years, had reached an equally advanced age with his mistress, and his scabby back gave him the appearance of having been eaten by moth. The cat and the hen had reached a greater age than the time usually allotted to their species; each would sit for hours perfectly motionless on the door-step, as if musing on the singing and exhorting they were constantly hearing within the house from their old mistress. Susan was very fond of animals, and seemed to have a curious power in taming and controlling them. I once told her, that had she lived earlier, she might have been taken up for a witch, with Tom and Toby as her familiar spirits.
Old Susan's faith led her to believe that she could see the hand of God in even the most trifling events of life, and that, as He was leading her, and teaching her through these means, she should be ever on the watch, so as not to lose the lessons His providence set in her way. She came to me one day with the utmost gravity, to tell me of a lesson in resignation. This pet dog, through some inadvertence, had eaten a portion prepared for rats; her tender heart was much troubled by the suffering so carelessly inflicted. Just before extinguishing her light at night, she turned to Dinah and—to let her tell her own story, as she told it to me: "Sez I, granny, look yer last on poor Prince, fur you'll never see him alive no more. Then it kinder struck me that I wasn't resigned, so I kneels down, and sez I, 'O dear Lord, he's bin a faithful dog to me. He's watched over my things many a day when I was out a beggin' for daily bread; he's bin very faithful, but I gin him up to de Lord. If de Lord says his time's out, I gin him up. I's resigned.' Next mornin' I opens de winders, an' behold, dere's Prince, jis as well as ever! Sez I, granny, de Lord has gin him back to me. He was jis a tryin' my faith! His will is the best fur us all, ye mus larn dat, granny, dat's the lesson from dis providence."
Old Susan still lives, but her faculties seem gradually failing, while life yet retains hold in her weak frame. She is helpless, poor, and old. While earthly matters seem fading out of her memory, her thoughts still cling to things above. In my last tract-distributing visit to her room, I found her holding an open Testament, with the leaf folded down at the fourteenth chapter of St. John's Gospel. She cannot read, but she sat pathetically looking at the text. As I entered, she exclaimed: "Oh, read it, read it, for me!" It seemed as if her faith, so sorely tried by her long waiting, and her earthly sufferings, was for a moment wavering. As I slowly and distinctly read the words, "In my Father's house are many mansions," etc., the glimmering rays rekindled, her faith re-asserted itself. "Yes, yes!" she exclaimed, "I knew it was so, I knew it was written somewhere there; now I remember it. I'll yet have a home in my Father's house." As I looked at the poor, worn-out frame; the weak, helpless hands; the wrinkled face, and the dim eyes, my faith could see through these the glorious spirit that should one day arise and take its upward flight towards the heavenly mansions.
POOR SARAH;
Or, Religion Exemplified in the Life and Death of a Pious Indian Woman.
The subject of the following narrative lived and died in a town in the eastern part of Connecticut. We are well acquainted with the writer, and we can assure our readers that the account here given is true.—Editor of the Religious Intelligencer.
It was a comfortless morning in the month of March, 1814, when I first formed an acquaintance with the subject of the following sketch.