Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter | Page 6

this servile toil Elizabeth submitted without a murmur, and patiently plodded on, her strong constitution and heroic courage and steady faith bearing her up. But the accusation of "ingratitude and disobedience" was so false and severe as to be very depressing to her spirits. And, never having been inured to hard labor or parental censure, these double tribulations were almost crushing; and to help her courage she kept up the low, almost inaudible hum of the sweet tunes she had so loved to sing among her chosen people, and, thus abstracted, toiled on week after week.
Such patience proved provoking, especially as what could be detected of the tunes, in the snatches heard, indicated to her father's enraged feelings a stubborn attachment to that people from whom he was trying to wean her; so even this little comfort was sternly denied her; and, while strength was gradually giving way under her heavy burdens, she was compelled to toil on in silence. Under all these sore trials not only her angry father but the evil one kept up the accusation of "stubborn disobedience."
At length she broke down under her burdens and troubles. Health, courage, and joy in the Lord gave way together. For the drill of Parson Huntington in Calvinian theology for nearly a year past now came up, enforced by the instructions of childhood, with fresh power; and she began to suspect that she was one of the "ordained reprobates," "passed by and doomed from eternity to endless ruin!" The whole system of "free grace," impartial atonement, and the Spirit's assurance, in the light and joy of which she had exulted for months in Pittsfield, and been so comforted in these subsequent months of hardship and false accusation, strangely faded before these childhood and recent instructions; and gradually this pupil of Augustine and Calvin sank into the doctrinal abyss of the "horrible decrees." Nor would her broken and depressed spirits allow these sudden conclusions to affect her as abstract dogmas. They struck her, by Satanic power, like lightning, as terribly personal realities. "I, even I, Elizabeth Ward, have been awfully deceived! I am one of the reprobates! I have preferred my father's commands to God's favor! I have committed the 'unpardonable sin!'"
How unaccountable is desponding unbelief! how ingenious and active under diabolical management! The Holy Spirit quoted to this poor, despondent girl "the precious promises," but she "refused to be comforted," and hastened to pass them all over to "the elect." He called to mind her rich experiences. They seemed to her far off in clouds of dim dreamland, and she called them a reprobate's delusions, "sent" on purpose to make her "believe a lie that she might be damned." He called her attention to the blessed word, to prayer and praise. She promptly swept all such observances away from reprobates to the ransomed "few," and, gnashing her teeth in anguish, sank to _utter despair!_
We will not attempt to describe a conscious reprobate, "passed by" and "ordained from eternity" to all eternity a lost soul! Such was the dark, dank night that settled down upon Elizabeth as she sank under her burdens, her temptations, and cruel, wicked unbelief. In this dismal, hopeless "hell upon earth" she pined away for weeks and months, utterly shrinking from Bible reading, prayer, song, or religious conversation, and studiously guarding against religious reasoning, and even thought, as abominable for a "reprobate."
It is not easy, in this age of religious liberty, to understand or apologize for such intolerance as Mr. Ward and Parson Huntington exhibited toward this innocent Methodist girl. But it should be remembered in charity:
1. That that age was about a century nearer the long period of persecution than this.
2. That a stern and terrible system of religious doctrines prevailed throughout New England at that day, not fruitful in charity, nor respectful toward any faith that differed from it.
3. That Methodism was new there then, and generally misunderstood, and such of its features as were correctly read were intensely hated--even such as are now admired and revered.
4. That parents, especially fathers, were then allowed by public opinion to hold more control over the consciences of their children, and variations from ancestral faith, and even ancestral error, not so frequent as now.

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