Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter | Page 8

the block, and the agitated girl hastened to her room, and most of the day and evening she was seeking the "wisdom that cometh from above." She easily settled all questions but one. She saw clearly what system of doctrines she must subscribe to and advocate and exemplify; what means of grace she needed and must have and honor by her attendance; and she knew where her heart centered, and where her covenant vows must be taken and fellowship cultivated and enjoyed. All was plain as noonday except her father's commands and her duty to him. This last problem she laid before the Lord; and no sooner was it fully committed to him than the Holy Spirit quoted the filial duty with a peculiar emphasis to her heart: "Obey your parents in the Lord." "He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me."
Her line of duty was now fully decided, cost what it might. Saturday morning they were again in their saddles, and side by side, beginning a long ride in silence. Elizabeth was desirous of telling her story and kindly explaining her views of duty, and, obtaining permission, she began at the beginning and rehearsed the dealings of God with her up to that hour. She then declared her filial affection and her readiness to obey implicitly in all matters where duty to God and conscience would permit. Finally, she appealed to her father "not to hinder or embarrass her, seeing the Lord had so marvelously rescued her from the power of the enemy and snatched her from the very jaws of death and ruin."
All this time the stern man had kept silence. They were nearing home. He opened his mouth and firmly told her that he "should at once and finally disinherit her if she went to Methodist meeting again!"
No more was said. Elizabeth that day looked upon all the familiar objects about that dear old home of her childhood as no longer hers in any sense. Her pets, especially her noble horse; her home, in which she was born and reared; the sick room, where she had suffered unutterable horrors and gained such memorable victories; her own dear room, where she was finally to spend that, her last night, as having any right there. She came, at last, late in the evening, to sweet slumbers in the "peace that passeth understanding."
Early Sunday morning she was plainly attired and slowly walking toward her beloved church, a plain chapel in a part of the city of Middletown near two miles from the Cove. There she feasted upon the word and publicly gave in her name as a probationer in the Methodist Episcopal Church.
From that moment she was afloat--out on the broad sea of life, without a home; a disowned, disinherited girl! She left home this morning, a comfortable, stately, dear old home of wealth, elegance, and affection. She must not return to it to-night. She was but yesterday an heiress. To-day she is poor, a wanderer in the earth. But she has at last a church-home, and her life really begins to-day. Father and mother have cast her off for her religion, but "the Lord hath taken her up." She is not without friends. Several doors are open for her. Almost before she knows she is homeless she has resumed her work of teaching and has a delightful home in a Methodist family.
Thus favorably situated for study, she takes up the doctrines of the Gospel as believed and taught by the Methodists, and makes rapid proficiency. Her pastor, one of the flaming heralds of early Methodism in New England, furnished her with the best of reading, and all her associates in the studies and active work of Zion wondered at the rapid progress of the disinherited girl. Little could they realize how vividly those doctrines shone in her heart as she came out of the "fiery furnace," and how intensely interested she now was in principles which had cost her so much, yet were worth, in her account, infinitely more, and well deserved to be studied and propagated.
A young man belonging to the Methodists of that city now enters into our narrative. He is above the ordinary size, about twenty-eight years of age, and some four or five years before this was clearly converted under the preaching of Bishop Asbury. He also is a teacher, and a very sound, logical student of Methodist doctrines and usages.
It is not many months before it is noticed that a mutual attachment seems to be springing up between this young man and Elizabeth, above the ordinary sympathies of teachers and church classmates. And as they had been acquainted from childhood, and fully understood each other's history and families, and were members together of a society of plain people,