Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter | Page 9

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, they did not consider a long courtship necessary. They were
both of Yankee stock, both escaping from Calvinism and ardently
attached to Methodism, both studious and competent to teach, and
loved to teach, and both were active workers in the church they
ardently loved.
So Joshua Arnold, aged twenty-nine, and Elizabeth Ward, aged
twenty-one, were united in holy matrimony in the charming month of
May, the last year of the eighteenth century. Thus closed the maiden
life and homeless loneliness of the disinherited daughter.
She had been ruthlessly turned out of a stately mansion which she
loved as her birthplace and childhood home, disinherited from her

rightful heirship to several thousands, and disowned by her family,
whose well-being she had faithfully labored to promote, and all for no
fault of hers, but wholly for a matter of conscience and principle. But in
less than a year she was settled in life in a home of which she was
mistress, with a worthy husband, of church membership and affinities
like her own, and in the free enjoyment of church privileges and holy
fellowships, for which her persecuted soul had "panted as the hart
panteth for the water brooks."

PART II.
THE GREAT WORK OF LIFE.
* * * * *

CHAPTER I.
ELIZABETH AS MISTRESS OF THE "COTTAGE CHAPEL."
One of the most natural consultations of the newly married couple is
the plan of their first house. How chatty and cheery a pair of newly
mated birds appear, in counsel over their nest-building! This
schoolmaster and mistress are home from their toil and care for the day,
and are again devoting an evening to the scheme of their first dwelling.
It is not a large or magnificent concern, but it has already been neatly
draughted, carefully considered, and builders' estimates footed up. All
seems to be about right; but Elizabeth has gone off into a brown study.
Her countenance betrays unusual agitation, and her pensive eye is filled
with tears. Her husband supposes she is thinking of the mansion from
which she has been spurned, as contrasted with the humble dwelling
they are planning, but she hastens to correct the mistake and assure him
that her musings were in the opposite direction entirely. "I was thinking
of our dear people, and how much they need in this suburb of the town
some place to hold meetings in. And this thought struck my mind

almost like an inspiration: Why not extend our plan up high enough for
an 'upper room' for meetings?" This notion, carefully considered, not
only in these consultations but in the prayers that closed them,
impressed them both as a divine suggestion. The house was built
accordingly. An outside staircase gave access to the upper story, which
was all finished off in a rough, cheap manner for a chapel, and
immediately and for a few years was occupied by the Methodist people
of the south part of Middletown and of the farms adjoining, for prayer
meetings, class meetings, and occasional exhortation and preaching.
Among the church privileges which had cost this disinherited daughter
so dearly few ever equaled in sweet enjoyment this cottage chapel
arrangement. She no longer had to steal away and snatch a few minutes
once or twice a month to associate with the advocates of free grace, as
she once did, nor be shut entirely away from their beloved society, as
for nearly a year, in that terrible season of persecution and despair. The
church she loved came to her door. Her home echoed their prayers,
songs, testimonies, and shouts. She lived, toiled, ate, and slept under
the shadow of the hallowed "upper room," so often, like the one in
Jerusalem, "filled with the Holy Ghost." She knew, as no one else could,
how much such privileges had cost her,