Thorsby related that one evening having made his camp for the night, and cut down boughs of the hemlock pine for his bed, an old Friend rode up, and asked leave to pass the night by his fire. He was a small, light man in sober home-spun clothes, who having hobbled out his horse, came and sat down, and drew from his wallet bread and dried venison, and invited Thorsby to partake. He said his name was Jesse Kersey, and that he was on a religious journey into the back settlements. After they had conversed till rather late, the stranger informed Thorsby that his father had left him a good property. Thorsby asked him in what it consisted,—in land? No. In houses? No. In money? No. In teaching him to live on a little. “He who has that fortune,” said Jesse Kersey, “can never want. I would give thee this as a safe rule of life—
‘Keep within compass, and thou wilt be sure
To shun many evils that others endure.’”
The old man having said this, tied his handkerchief round his head for a nightcap, drew his rug over him, and saying, “Farewell, friend!” dropped instantly to sleep, and slept like a child till morning. Thorsby himself lay long, and thought on the truth of the old man’s simple philosophy. In the morning, as they rode on through the deep forests together, Jesse Kersey dropped gradually into a silence. Thorsby addressed to him some remark, but receiving no reply, he cast a glance at his companion, and observed that he was deep sunk in reverie. At length the old man said—
“Stranger and yet friend, I am drawn by that life which wells up in the heart like the spring in the desert, and the soft breeze on the solitary plain, in tenderness and loving concern towards thee. Of thy past life or outward circumstances I know nothing but what thou hast said, that thou art from the old country; I am, however, made inwardly sensible that there are two natures striving in thee for the mastery. There is the spirit and life of good, and the spirit and life of vanity, and the word to thee which arises in me is—Be prayerful and bewareful. Oh, I see a fire in thee which might be that of which I have lately heard in the so-called ‘Wild-fire Preacher,’ Oh, it is a quick, leaping, overleaping, perilous fire, capable of causing thee to spring out of the cool soberness of peace and wisdom, as it were, into the very pit of perdition. Friend! beware! beware! beware! Put thy heart into the hand of Almighty God. Oh, pray Him fervently, most fervently to chastise it, and press it down, and crush out of it this high-leaping and unruly fire! And the answer in my spirit is—Yes. God shall so press down the life within thee; so crush and control thy spirit by severe labour and discipline, by passing the waters of affliction over thy had and by awaking deep searching thoughts in thy own solitary heart, that this fire shall be extinguished, and the solid ground of peaceful wisdom shall be laid within thee, and thou shalt be made to experience the beauty of holiness and the thoughts of him whose heart is stayed on God.”
Thorsby added that he himself had here broken down, and had wept like a child, wept long and silently as they travelled on, and he had prayed that every affliction might befall him which should arm him with this blessed strength. His heart had been drawn to this old Friend as to a father, and he had travelled on with him a fortnight, attended his meetings, and seen with daily increasing wonder the loving and single childlike simplicity and faith of this apostle of the woods. It was with a violent effort that he had torn himself away from him, and that he was now about to penetrate into the woods and hills of Indiana.
It may be imagined what a consolation this letter was to Letty Thorsby amid the dark days now lowering over her and her whole family, and she, too, prayed that God would spare no correction to her husband which would leave him sobered and strengthened into permanent stability.
Spring was once more advancing, but to the afflicted family and the prisoner at Castleborough it came only with anxious fears and dreadfully depressed spirits. The Woodburns, collected together at Letty’s, were very very low in heart; and Mr. Woodburn himself, as time drew on, became very restless and desponding. He had borne up well, and said very little about his case, except that it would be all right. But as the time of trial approached and no new light whatever had been cast on the mystery of Mr. Drury’s death, he began to be very low too.
Sometimes, after sitting long in silence, he would suddenly seem to wake out of a reverie, and say, “It is strange, very strange that nothing turns up.” His family would say, “Very strange, indeed; but we must trust in God.” And once or twice lately he had startled them by saying, as if angrily, “Yes, trust in God, that is always the word; but is there a God at all?”
The shock this gave them was dreadful. Ann exclaimed, “Oh, dear father, don’t, don’t let go your faith in God! Think what mercies He has shed on your whole life. Think on the love by which you are surrounded, on the influential friends ready to do everything possible for your defence.”
“If anything,” said Mr. Woodburn, “would make me doubt the truth of Christianity, it is those very ready, flourishing promises that it abounds in. ‘Whatever ye ask in my name, believing, ye shall receive.’ ‘Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened; ask, and it shall be given you.’ Now, have I not asked day after day, in the name of Christ, that the truth might be revealed in this case? Have I not sought, and knocked, and asked, and all to no purpose?”