Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter | Page 4

settle
the question of prayer; and thence on for weeks all the relief she found
was in prayer and confession; a few crumbs of comfort to encourage

her to persevere in seeking; for she began to wonder why she had not
found peace, when she had sought so long and tried to give up all for
Christ.
One day, in the retirement of her room, her mirror revealed a gayety of
apparel that struck her as unsuitable for a poor, guilty sinner. The
fashions of that day were very profuse in ornamentation; and as she
saw herself in the glass, her eyes red and heavy with weeping, and yet
her attire as gay and vain as if prepared for a ball, she felt sure that her
mode of dress had all this time been a hindrance to her; and she then
and there concluded to reduce all to plainness, much like the people
who had led her to penitence. The pride of dress and equipage seemed
now to be about the last idol to give up, and, all of her own counsel, she
did the work very thoroughly; and as to her abundant jewelry, the result
of her spontaneous zeal was rather ludicrous. "Determined that it
should never prove a snare to any other poor soul as it had to her," she
passed it all under the hammer until there was nothing left but
unseemly lumps of gold and silver; the precious stones were utterly
demolished.
From that work this hitherto gaudy maiden came out as plain as a
Quakeress, and hastened to the Methodist prayer meeting. Seeing her
thus evidently taught of the Holy Spirit, they took hold of her case with
new courage as she bowed with them crying for mercy. The prayers of
the early Methodists were something wonderful, and this
broken-hearted penitent drank into their wrestling spirit. They claimed
for her the "exceeding great and precious promises," with mighty faith;
she claimed these promises with them. They took hold on Jesus; she
put her hand with theirs into His with a strong and steady grip, and He
accepted her.
The conversion of Elizabeth was instantaneous, and exceedingly clear
and powerful, and its assurance overwhelming. Her long night was at
once turned into day, and that clear daylight was also a blaze of glory.
Her joy was ecstatic. Her tall form, which had been gaudily adorned,
but now attired for the meek and lowly Saviour, was at times prostrated
by divine power, and her regenerated soul filled with the rapture of

heaven. Night and day, for weeks, her only relief from ecstasy was by
settling into solid peace, thus alternating from the quiet valley of "peace
that passeth understanding" to the glory-crowned hilltops of "joy
unspeakable."
After a sufficient time had elapsed to demonstrate the genuineness and
unfading glory of her experience, Elizabeth wrote home a plain account
of it, concealing nothing. This was the astounding and alienating letter
that so stirred up things at the Cove.

CHAPTER III.
THAT ALARMING MESSAGE.
The Wards, at the Cove, continued to be much troubled over
Elizabeth's letter. Had a note or a messenger announced her serious
illness, or her elopement or sudden death, the first pang would have
terminated in some sort of relief, or at least a breathing place; but this
letter was suffocating, and the dense fog seemed to grow darker as it
stretched into the future. "A religious fanatic!" "A Methodist lunatic!"
"Has our darling set out upon such a life?"
"I'm afraid it will kill your father; it struck him dumb. I can't draw him
into any conversation about her; and he is so angry!" Thus the troubled
mother would talk and cry. The sisters and brothers listen to her, and,
without comprehending "the prospect so awful in Betsey's future life,"
would keep dumb, like "daddy," and cry, like "mammy."
Finding no relief at home, Mrs. Ward consulted their aged parson,
"Priest Huntington," and placed the ominous letter in his hands; and he
took the troublesome document home for professional analysis. It is not
to be supposed that the Holy Spirit left this letter to pass through such a
crucible alone. The experience it told was substantially His work, and
the hand that wrote it was not wholly without His guidance; and now
the cultured mind which examined it was that of a logical analyst,
however strong his prejudice. The old parson was struck with its

simplicity and soundness, and hastened to the Cove to "pronounce Miss
Elizabeth's experience genuine, and even wonderful," and that he
believed her to be "one of God's chosen vessels to bear witness of His
sovereign grace."
So favorable an opinion from such an authority greatly relieved the
apprehensions of the family; all but the incensed father, who would
neither talk nor