Elizabeth: the Disinherited Daughter Part 3

Families have thus caught the emigrating spirit in sufficient numbers to form clans of pioneer evangelists, and torn themselves out of little Edens to found colonies in dreary moral deserts; and as "the kingdom comes" with more rapid strides such single-eyed emigrations will become more frequent.

CHAPTER V.

VOLNEY, OSWEGO COUNTY, NEW YORK.

We are now suddenly introduced into a new country of heavy timber. The people have settled near together, and yet so thick are the woods, and so small the clearings, that nearly every family is alone, and cannot see out in any direction but by looking up toward heaven, a habit they learned before settling in these woods.

It is a Ma.s.sachusetts colony from Lenox, Pittsfield, and Was.h.i.+ngton Mountain. These people came here for two purposes: to "get land for their children," and to "take the new country for G.o.d and Methodism." But the last object was first, and ever held its rank.

As you call around upon these detached families you find them thoughtful, intelligent, and decidedly religious; although each family is alone in the woods, they are not very lonesome, for familiar sounds reach them almost every hour of the day. The deep-sounding cow bells, the dinner horns, the ring of the ax, and the thunder of the falling tree keep them in happy remembrance of their brethren and of their diligence and success, and often wake the antic.i.p.ation of the coming Sabbath, when they will blend their songs and prayers around the mercy seat.

And now the longed-for Sunday morning has dawned. The woodman's ax lies still, the dinner horn hangs upon its peg, and no treefall breaks the sacred silence. The half-burned "backlog" is buried in ashes on the broad stone hearth, and the door of each log cabin is simply shut--it needs no lock--and from every direction all the people are seen approaching a large log dwelling in a small clearing of central situation. It is the newest house in the settlement, as its occupants have been here only a few weeks.

But they are well known in the colony, and have cordially "opened their doors" and "provided for the meetings."

Joshua and Elizabeth Arnold are once more in their much-loved relation to Methodism, the master and mistress of the "cottage chapel." And now, as the meeting hour draws nigh, you see the people entering this little clearing by two or three footpaths and two highways, a few in wagons and sleds drawn by oxen, but mostly on foot. They are plainly but neatly clad, and every requisite of becoming Sabbath decorum is plainly to be seen in both adults and children, and even in young men and misses. The family chairs are occupied by the aged and the ailing, while most of the people sit upon benches without backs. The singing is superior, both in the structure of the tunes and the fullness and sweetness of voice of most of the singers.

Such tunes as China, Mear, Northfield, Windham, Exhortation, etc., set to our most solid hymns and sung with the understanding and in the spirit, have never been excelled, and probably will not be in this world. The preaching also is excellent, and the hearing corresponds. Tears are abundant, and responses neither scant nor misplaced, and impressions deep.

At the close of the public service nearly all "remain for cla.s.s meeting."

The speaking is clear, direct, and candid; the singing spontaneous, brief, and spirited. When the cla.s.s meeting closes, hand-shaking and shouts close the scene, and most of the people return immediately home.

No tobacco smoke has polluted the air of the place. No gossip or worldly talk has profaned the sacred day. Such as by distance, feebleness, or any other cause would be likely to fail of coming back to the late afternoon or evening meeting are led, if possible, to remain and eat with the family.

From half a dozen to a dozen usually accept of the cordial invitation, and find a strong evangelical influence in the very atmosphere of this place of wors.h.i.+p.

At the closing meeting in the latter part of the day some fruit usually appears from the personal labors bestowed upon guests between meetings; thus putting the divine seal upon the hospitality and influence of the cottage chapel.

The picture of this day is substantially the description of the Sabbaths of years at this meeting place.

CHAPTER VI.

HARDs.h.i.+PS OF THE NEW COLONY.

It is no small undertaking to reduce heavily timbered lands to farms, especially where there are few, if any, kinds of timber of any market value, as was the case in the Oswego wilderness subdued by this Ma.s.sachusetts colony and others who settled in with and around about them.

All the land had to be cleared twice, and much of it three times, of some tons per acre of enc.u.mbrances. First, the trees must be felled, cut up, rolled into heaps, and burned to ashes. Then the huge stumps must take a few years to decay, and then be torn out, piled up in heaps, and also burned. Last, but not always least in labor and cost, a burden of stones had to be drawn off from portions of most of the farms and piled in heaps or wrought into walls. But our colonists were sober, diligent, and persevering, and under their cheerful toil the wilderness was reduced to fruitful fields. The temporary log houses and stables soon gave place to comfortable buildings; and the "clearings" met as the woods disappeared before the ax.

The log chapel dwelling, sacred though it was as G.o.d's house and heaven's gate, was one of the first to disappear. A goodly frame house was just covered and its floors laid, but no part.i.tions set up, when it was gloriously consecrated by a most powerful quarterly meeting.

This was in the summer of 1823. Rev. Goodwin Stoddard was the presiding elder, a mighty man when fully aroused. Sunday evening he preached in the new house during a fearful thunderstorm, and seemed girded like Elijah running before the chariot of the king. While Jehovah spake in the clouds, and for a long time the heavens seemed to be "a sheet of flame." He also spake by his servant, and the response from the people was in tears and sobs, groans and shouts; and at the conclusion of nearly every sweep of the preacher's wonderful flights could be heard above the whole a shrill shout from the hostess, followed by a tornado of amens! When the sermon closed the storm ceased, and the "slain of the Lord were many." Memorable night!

The people found neither slumber nor weariness, and when the morning dawned very few had not found a brighter dawn.

CHAPTER VII.

THE QUARTERLY MEETINGS.

These meetings, held in the summer season upon these premises for near a dozen years, were greatly enjoyed by Elizabeth and the family. The circuit was large, and most of its two or three dozen appointments would be represented at what they called the "quarterly visitation." For two or three hours before noon on Sat.u.r.day the people were pouring in from all parts of the circuit, and some from adjoining circuits. Besides what would consent to sit down to dinner, "lunch" was freely distributed, which very few refused after a long ride or walk. This lunch business was very handy, and not unpopular. No plates were used; the people in house or yard took in their hands the cold meats, biscuit, cheese, and doughnuts, while pans of milk and pails of water, provided with tin cups, were set conveniently.

After the Sat.u.r.day sermon the preacher in charge distributed the guests among the hospitable homes of the society. But as the Quarterly Conference was yet to be held the local preachers, exhorters, stewards, and cla.s.s leaders, and usually their families, either stayed there or, perhaps, a few of them, at the nearest neighbors'.

However scattered during Sat.u.r.day night and Sunday night, they had a rallying time at the place of meeting before starting for home Monday, when, by more or less delay, time wore on, and the "lunch" came around again. Fifty to a hundred meals, and two or more general lunches, were not remarkable at the cottage chapel; while for lodging, divided bedding and shawls scantily covered upon beds, benches, and floors, the women and children in the house, and a little new hay divided among the men and boys in the barn, made their rest somewhat tolerable.

At this distance of time and custom one would be sure that the hostess, after such a siege, would be worn down, nervous, and melancholy; but those who understood her best could have borne witness to a change of spirits, if any, in the opposite direction. As early as Monday on ordinary occasions, and Tuesday after the great quarterly visitation, the brick oven was sure to turn out its usual supplies for the family.

Nor could the holding out of strength and spirits be credited princ.i.p.ally to a good const.i.tution; but while much was due to the pious joy with which she did all, more, perhaps, is to be laid to what her Yankee friends called "faculty." Solomon's temple was not more accurately prepared than this housewife's arrangements for receiving and caring for her meeting guests.

Nor was she less skillful in selecting and directing such youngerly women from among the guests as she needed for helpers and waiters. Her stock of ap.r.o.ns was marvelous, and the dispatch with which she equipped her corps and clothed their ruddy countenances in smiles was only equaled by the speed with which everything was finished in time for meeting call, and her "girls" and herself in their places in good time. And whatever woman in the meeting did not do her part of the praying, speaking, singing, and, on occasion, shouting too, that woman was not Elizabeth Arnold.

When Zion's hospitable entertainers shall be acknowledged before a.s.sembled worlds, and all their liberality and painstaking in the spirit of their Master, who fed the mult.i.tude, shall be mentioned to his glory and their credit through his grace, will not the humble name of Elizabeth Arnold be spoken with the honorable mention of that host of n.o.ble, patient toilers who fed the people, that they might thus detain them under the influence of Him who stood waiting to feed them with the bread of eternal life?

CHAPTER VIII.

EXTENDS HER LABORS.

After about a dozen and a quarter years the Arnold place lost the meetings both of the circuit and of the society.

The changes of business and travel left the place quite one side, and the meetings had been gradually removed to more central and convenient locations. Mr. Arnold had been called by the church to hold meetings as an exhorter, and had sought out some dest.i.tute neighborhoods as his chosen field. It was natural and appropriate for his wife to accompany him.

They were both good singers, and had sung together a third of a century.

They were ready speakers and mighty in prayer, and in the quiet way of lay workers they went from house to house, and to a family in a place they presented the great salvation in conversation and psalm, and commended the people to G.o.d in prayer.

It was not long before they collected in congregations; and while the "licensed" exhorter, who really "preached many things to the people in his exhortations," always led the meetings, the real exhorter followed with cutting appeals. This dest.i.tute region was thus visited occasionally for several years, and this couple had the honor of being its successful pioneers in Christian evangelism. In a central position has long stood a Methodist Episcopal church, and members of its society, fifty years after these humble labors, acknowledged them in the hearing of the writer as the means of their salvation.

Elizabeth was now between fifty and sixty years of age, was no longer the nimble rider, but somewhat heavy and clumsy; she preferred the carriage seat to the saddle, but still in her numerous visits to the sick and such as she could bless by religious calls she continued her old method, as being more independent. Many wondered at the ease and skill with which a woman of her age and size would spring on and off and manage her horse.

She would modestly reply, "My dear father taught me how, and I have always liked it."

She early became a skillful nurse, and was for many years a diligent visitor of the sick, especially among the poor and the ignorant. Her saddle horns were hung with budgets of medicinal herbs and little comforts, and she would find out the sick and suffering, and administer both to their physical and spiritual wants, and return to her household duties almost before her family knew she had been gone.

About this time a new field of labor was providentially opened to this Christian worker. The Presbyterian and Baptist churches in that town began to employ "evangelists" to hold "revival meetings" of a new order; but when the people appeared to be thoughtful, and they got them into the "anxious meetings," they found it almost impossible to get them to praying or the church to praying for them directly and earnestly, especially the sisterhood of the Presbyterian church; so the deacons and elders, in their strait, begged Mrs. Arnold to "come over into Macedonia and help." Much as she had suffered in her early religious life from predestinarianism, she never was a bigot, and so she, like Paul, "gathered a.s.suredly" that the call was of the Lord, and "without gainsaying" went and helped them publicly and from house to house as best she could. The result was that during the balance of her active life she was urged into and did much of this inter-church work in their periodical revivals, and obviously with good effect.

But, grateful as were these churches for such help, and encouraging to her heart as the fruit appeared, she ever labored in these Calvinistic a.s.sociations under more or less embarra.s.sment. To be at once true to her principles and true to interdenominational courtesy left her rather a narrow platform to work upon; but, limited as it was, she would not transcend it in either direction. When, however, she could find revival work within reach among her own people she ever gave such calls the preference; and from their arrival in the new country down to the retirement of infirm old age, more than a quarter of a century, "Sister Arnold" was known for many miles around as "an excellent revival laborer."

Several allusions have been made in this narrative to her shouting; but it should be understood that she was not in the habit of "shouting before getting out of the swamp." The order of her work was solemn, steady, earnest, and in mighty faith; but when the struggle was over, the victory gained, sometimes that solemn countenance would become suddenly luminous and her shrill shouts would pierce the very heavens. These loud exultations, however, were indulged in in no meetings but those of her own people, and grew less frequent as age crept on, giving place to tears of joy and whispers of praise.