Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter | Page 7

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 devices to harbor gloomy forebodings, but a
wretched sinner, about to destroy soul and body in hell, on the verge of
destruction to character, and all good influences by an act of her own!
Desperately, in spite of her dread of prayer, she cried to God against
that dreadful temptation, and instantly she had full victory over it. The
eyes, long dried in the desert of despair, were moistened with tears of
wonder and gratitude. Astonished at such a clear answer to prayer, she
prayed again for deliverance from Satan's power and all his
enchantments, and they fled away like the shadow of a cloud. Her
dungeon flamed with light, before which the horrible decrees also
vanished, falling into line, and following their author to the land of
darkness, never to trouble her more.
The light shone on, more and more; and although at dead of night, her
room seemed to her to shine above the brightness of the sun at noonday;
and the doctrines of free grace seemed to flash about her with

transcendent glory, until investing her entire being. She knew she was
not a reprobate; for God had heard her desperate cry against that
greatest of sins. She saw in God's own light the blessed assurance that
Jesus died for her and for all; and in driving away the enemy and the
dense cloud of error, that had long shrouded her dungeon in Egyptian
darkness, she clearly saw glorious demonstrations of divine clemency
in store for her. She deplored her unbelief, and humbly sought
forgiveness and full restoration; and there, and then, by faith in Jesus,
she accepted Him again as her Saviour.
Instantly her raptures returned, with more than their former power and
glory, and she went off into a perfect gale of ecstasy. Such sounds had
never been heard in that mansion before, and the family hastened to
learn the cause. There lay the wasted form upon what they thought to
be the bed of death. Her thin arms were stretched upward, and her pale
hands came together with frequency and energy quite remarkable. Her
countenance seemed lighted up with an unearthly glow, and her words
were ready and full of heavenly felicity, and uttered with a strength and
sweetness of voice quite beyond her power. All these evidences, added
to the fact that their tender and anxious questions remained unanswered,
and their presence and weeping seemed entirely unnoticed, struck them
as demonstrations that "the angels had come for poor, dear Betsey," and
that in her triumphant flight from her cruel sufferings "she had already
passed beyond them, and would never speak to them again."
After some time, however, she seemed to them to have been brought
back by their lamentations and self-accusations, and, hushing them to
silent attention, she assured them that this was "not dying," but "living,
and preparing to live," by a return of her first love and a glorious
victory over temptation and error.
From that blessed night her convalescence was much more rapid than
anyone had thought possible. Peace of mind is a marvelous restorer,
especially when despondency has driven health away.
On a beautiful morning, a few weeks after, Elizabeth was agreeably
surprised by an unexpected announcement made at the door of her
room. She had had remarkable liberty that morning in conducting

family prayer, which by consent of her parents she resumed soon after
her recent victory. Her father came to her door, and, in a voice which
sounded so much like the good days gone by, announced his plan for "a
short ride." Her own horse was at the block; and as the strong arms of
her father placed her in the saddle the noble beast gave signs of joy
over her returning health.
The horseman by her side, in the ride of that and several following
mornings, seemed agitated by conflicting emotions, yet making