Excellent Women Part 3

HER CONVERSION.

At Donnington Park the Countess began the kindly and charitable deeds for which she afterwards became so noted. Her religious feelings were strong, and she strove earnestly to discharge fully her responsibilities to both G.o.d and man. And yet, as she afterwards came clearly to see, she was ignorant of the true nature of the Gospel, and she was attempting, by strict adherence to prayer, meditation, right living, and charitable action, to justify herself in the sight of G.o.d. But, all unknown to her, the mighty religious awakening begun at Oxford in 1729, and publicly preached in 1738 by Whitefield and the Wesleys, was destined to be the cause of her spiritual awakening also. Lady Margaret Hastings and Lady Betty Hastings, the Earl of Huntingdon's sisters, had come at Oxford under the influence of the Methodist movement. While on a visit at Ledstone Hall, in Yorks.h.i.+re, they received great blessing under the preaching of Benjamin Ingham, a well-known member of the Holy Club, whom in 1741 Lady Margaret married. They both received the truth as it is in Jesus, and were led by the influence of the Holy Spirit to labour and pray for the salvation of their relatives and friends. In talking with her sister-in-law one day, Lady Margaret affirmed "that since she had known and believed in the Lord Jesus Christ for life and salvation she had been as happy as an angel."

These words depicted an experience so different from her own that they exerted a very abiding influence upon Lady Huntingdon's thoughts. She felt her need, she was conscious of sin, and yet the more she strove to attain salvation the further she seemed removed from it. "A dangerous illness having, soon after, brought her to the brink of the grave, the fear of death fell terribly upon her, and her conscience was greatly distressed. She now perceived that she had beguiled herself with prospects of a visionary nature; was entirely blinded to her own real character; had long placed her happiness in mere chimaeras, and grounded her vain hopes upon imaginary foundations. It was to no purpose that she reminded herself of the morality of her conduct; in vain did she recollect the many encomiums that had been pa.s.sed upon her early piety and virtue. Her best righteousness now appeared to be but 'filthy rags,'

which, so far from justifying her before G.o.d, increased her condemnation. When upon the point of peris.h.i.+ng, in her own apprehension, the words of Lady Margaret returned strongly to her recollection, and she felt an earnest desire, renouncing every other hope, to cast herself wholly upon Christ for life and salvation. From her bed she lifted up her heart to her Saviour, with this important prayer, and immediately all her distress and fears were removed, and she was filled with peace and joy in believing.... Her disorder from that moment took a favourable turn; she was restored to perfect health, and, what was better, to newness of life. She determined thenceforward to present herself to G.o.d, as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, which she was now convinced was her reasonable service.... No sooner was her heart surrendered to G.o.d, and her alienated affections restored to their original claimant, than outward fruits appeared in her conversation: her renovation introduced new light into her understanding, and new desires into her heart and affections, and produced its effect upon her temper; not wholly to eradicate its const.i.tutional peculiarity, but to sanctify and render it subservient to the glory of G.o.d and the good of souls." [1]

The Countess on recovering from her illness, hearing that John and Charles Wesley were preaching near by, sent them a message wis.h.i.+ng them G.o.d-speed and testifying to her own purpose to live entirely for the Saviour who had died for her. Her friends failing in their attempt to persuade her husband to exert his influence against what they considered fanaticism, enlisted the aid of Dr. Benson, Bishop of Gloucester, who had been Lord Huntingdon's teacher. But the bishop, as many another in later days, found that the Countess was fully equal to giving cogent reasons for her faith and practice. It was he who had ordained Whitefield, and to the latter the bishop ascribed the change in her opinion. So far from accepting the bishop's view, the Countess urged home upon him her opinion of _his_ duty, enforcing her argument with such apt quotations from the Bible, the Articles, and the Homilies, that at length he left her presence openly regretting the fact that he had ever laid his hands upon Whitefield's head. "My Lord," was the last word of the Countess, "mark my words: when you are on your dying bed that will be one of the few ordinations you will reflect upon with complacence." It is pleasing to know that when on his death-bed in 1752, this prelate sent to Whitefield, and asked to be remembered in his prayers.

[Footnote 1: _The Life and Times of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon_, vol. 1. pp. 14, 15.]

III.

HELP IN THE WORK OF WESLEY AXD WHITEFIELD.

Although in 1738 and 1739 Wesley and his followers frequented the Moravian meeting-house in Neville's Court, Fetter Lane, the first home of organised Methodism in London was the Foundry in Moorfields. Lady Huntingdon had identified herself with the Methodists, and thus was enabled to exert great influence upon a movement, small at first, but soon fraught with most potent consequences, the employment by Wesley of lay evangelistic agency. Wesley had already allowed some of his lay helpers to expound, but not to preach. Yet here, as in his strong desire to keep the Methodist movement within the borders of the Established Church, he was to find that his personal view, if enforced, would hinder the work which was so manifestly of G.o.d, and with his clear common sense he at once gave way. During 1739 Lady Huntingdon had frequently heard Thomas Maxfield pray, and, according to her biographer, it was at her suggestion that he began to expound the Scriptures. Wesley had been summoned from London, and no clergyman being available at that moment, he left Maxfield in charge, to pray with the members of the society and to give them such helpful advice as he could. In a letter to Wesley, written either at the close of 1739 or the beginning of 1740, Lady Huntingdon writes of Maxfield: "He is one of the greatest instances of G.o.d's peculiar favour that I know: he is raised from the stones to sit amongst the princes of His people. The first time I made him expound, expecting little from him, I sat over against him and thought what a power of G.o.d must be with him to make _me_ give any attention to him.

But before he had gone over one-fifth part, any one that had seen me would have thought I had been made of wood or stone; so quite immovable I both felt and looked. His power in prayer is quite extraordinary."

The border line between such expounding and preaching is very narrow, and it is hardly to be wondered at that Maxfield soon found that he was not only preaching, but doing so with the most true and certain warrant of fitness for the office--souls were being born again under his ministrations. On hearing such unexpected tidings, Wesley hurried back to London, and entering his house next door to the Foundry with clouded face, replied to his mother's question as to the cause, "Thomas Maxfield has turned preacher, I find." Great was his surprise to receive the rejoinder, "Take care what you do with respect to that young man, for he is as surely called of G.o.d to preach as you are." Such testimony from such a source could not fail to move John Wesley. He wisely heard for himself, and expressed his judgment in the words of Scripture--"It is the Lord: let Him do what seemeth Him good."

Thus Methodism pa.s.sed through what might have been its first great crisis. Thus it equipped itself to keep pace with the ever-increasing claims of its work. The quick spiritual insight of Lady Huntingdon recognised both the need and the fitness of the hitherto unrecognised worker.

One of the first members of the n.o.ble band of itinerating preachers thus called into the active exercise of their spiritual gifts was David Taylor, a servant in Lord Huntingdon's household, who did much fruitful evangelistic work in the villages surrounding Donnington Park. It was this man who stood by John Wesley's side when the drunken curate of Epworth refused him admission to what had been his father's pulpit, and who announced to the congregation as they left the church that in the afternoon Wesley would preach in the graveyard. And there that same afternoon Wesley, standing upon his father's tombstone, preached to a congregation, the like of which Epworth had never seen before, the first of a series of sermons that afterwards became famous.

Having thus aided one of the brothers during a critical administrative stage, Lady Huntingdon shortly afterwards was of great service to the other in a crisis of spiritual experience. Soon after the organisation of the first Methodist Society, the "still" heresy developed among the Moravian members of the Fetter Lane Chapel. This was the view, "that believers had nothing to do with ordinances--were not subject to them--and ought to be _still_; that they ought to leave off the means of grace, and not go to church; not to communicate; not to search the Scriptures; not to use private prayer till they had living faith; and to be _still_ till they had it." [1] Wesley used all his influence and all his persuasive power to counteract these opinions, but without avail. At length he decided to sever all connection with those who insisted upon acting in accordance with them, and removed Methodism to the Foundry.

Charles Wesley at first went cordially with his brother, but at a later date he ceased attending the Foundry, and manifested signs of a desire to return to Fetter Lane. Lady Huntingdon, for whose views he entertained feelings of the deepest respect, remonstrated with him, and in conjunction with John Wesley's efforts kept him from a step that might have proved fatal to his further usefulness. In a letter written to John Wesley in October, 1741, Lady Huntingdon writes: "Since you left us the _still ones_ are not without their attacks. I fear much more for your brother than for myself, as the conquest of the one would be nothing to the other.... I comfort myself very much that you will approve a step with respect to them your brother and I have taken. No less than his declaring open war with them.... Your brother is also to give his reasons for quite separating. I have great faith G.o.d will not let him fall; He will surely have mercy on him, and not on him only, for many would fall with him."

[Footnote 1: _Life and Times of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon_, vol. 1.

p. 36.]

IV.

FAMILY BEREAVEMENTS.

Lady Huntingdon at this period of her life was called upon to endure some very heavy domestic griefs. She had to mourn for two of her sons, George, aged thirteen, and Fernando, aged eleven, who died of small-pox.

They were both buried in Westminster Abbey. On October 13, 1746, she lost her husband, who was carried off by an apoplectic seizure, in his fiftieth year. The Countess had only just pa.s.sed her thirty-ninth birthday when this last great sorrow came upon her. She herself was at the same time tried by a long and severe illness. The effect of these repeated and heavy afflictions was to further develop her character, and to increase the devotion and self-sacrifice with which she gave herself to works of benevolence and to the extension of the Saviour's kingdom.

On Lord Huntingdon's death, besides having entire control of her own means, she became sole trustee of the children and their fortune. In regard to the latter she proved herself a good steward; the former she devoted very largely to the evangelistic and charitable work in which she delighted.

Early in 1747 she wrote to Dr. Doddridge: "I hope you will comfort me by all the accounts you can gather of the flouris.h.i.+ng and spreading of the glad tidings. Oh, how do I lament the weakness of my hands, the feebleness of my knees, and coolness of my heart! I want it on fire always, not for self-delight, but to spread the Gospel from pole to pole." And in other letters: "My heart wants nothing so much as to dispense _all_--_all_ for the glory of Him whom my soul loveth." "I am nothing--Christ is all; I disclaim, as well as disdain, any righteousness but His. I not only rejoice that there is no wisdom for His people but that from above, but reject every pretension to any but what comes from Himself. I want no holiness He does not give me, and I could not accept a heaven He did not prepare me for; I can wish for no liberty but what He likes for me, and I am satisfied with every misery He does not redeem me from; that in all things I may feel that without Him I can do nothing.... To preach Christ and His blessing upon repentance over the earth is the commission--the event must be with Him--all else is from man and of man. May the Lord give us all such love, to live and die to Him and for Him alone."

At a later period in life, May, 1763, she sustained another serious bereavement in the loss of her youngest daughter. Although only twenty-six years of age, she had long been a great comfort to her mother, who, writing after her death, called her "the desire of my eyes and the continual pleasure of my heart." Many were the letters of sympathy she received from Venn, Berridge, Romaine, Fletcher, and others; but it was a loss that could not be replaced. But it could and it did help to purify still more the loving and trusting heart which could see, even as Fletcher urged, in so sore a trial, "mercy rejoicing over judgment." One of the sayings of her daughter on that death-bed must often have come to the mother's mind in later days, "I am as happy as my heart can desire to be."

V.

WHITEFIELD AS LADY HUNTINGDON'S CHAPLAIN.

Prior to 1744, the date of Whitefield's first voyage to the American colonies, the Countess had made his acquaintance, and had often heard him preach. She, in common with mult.i.tudes of her contemporaries, had come under the extraordinary spell of his pulpit oratory. In 1748, after a four years' absence in North America, Whitefield returned to England, and at her request Howel Harris, the famous Welsh evangelist, brought the great preacher to Lady Huntingdon's house in Chelsea. In a reply to a letter sent the next day, conveying the request that he would come again, as "several of the n.o.bility desired to hear him," Whitefield wrote, August 21, 1748: "How wonderfully does our Redeemer deal with souls! If they will hear the Gospel only under a ceiled roof, ministers shall be sent to them there. If only in a church or a field, they shall have it there. A word in the lesson, when I was last at your Ladys.h.i.+p's, struck me, 'Paul preached privately to those who were of reputation.'

This must be the way, I presume, of dealing with the n.o.bility who yet know not the Lord. Oh, that I may be enabled, When called to preach to any of them, so to preach as to win their souls to the blessed Jesus! I know that you will pray that it may be so."

Thus began the series of drawing-room services which were attended by so many of those who were high in rank, and at which some of the most famous incidents in Whitefield's career occurred. At these services the Word of G.o.d often found an entrance into worldly hearts, and once and again Whitefield tried to win for the Saviour such men as Chesterfield and Bolingbroke. Lady Huntingdon made him one of her chaplains, and in order to afford greater facilities for this special work, she removed from Chelsea to a house in Park Street, and for six weeks Whitefield carried on these special services, in addition to all his other work.

When, for his own spiritual refreshment, he left London for an evangelistic tour to Bristol, Exeter, and Plymouth, this special work was continued by John and Charles Wesley, and several of their fellow-workers.

The young Earl of Huntingdon came of age in 1750, and the Countess gave up Donnington Park to him, removing her household to Ashby, living there with her other children and two of the Ladies Hastings. Towards the close of 1749 Whitefield desired, if possible, with the aid of Lady Huntingdon, to organise the vast numbers who had been greatly blessed by his evangelistic work, into a corporate body, like that which the clear, practical wisdom of John Wesley had created for the societies which looked up to him as leader. Whitefield had already seriously differed from Wesley on the tenets of Calvinism and much trouble was to ensue in after years from a renewal of the controversy between the two sections, Calvinistic and Arminian Methodism. Lady Huntingdon seems to have been attracted by Whitefield's wish and plan; though it was not at this time destined to bear fruit. But early in 1750 she exerted herself, and with success, to bring about a renewal of thoroughly friendly relations between the two great leaders. On January 19 and 26, 1750, Whitefield and Wesley took part in combined services; Wesley reading prayers and Whitefield preaching on the former, these respective functions being reversed on the latter date. Until Whitefield's death this harmony was never again broken.

At this period Whitefield paid several visits to Ashby. Here and in London he had fellows.h.i.+p with Dr. Doddridge, whose MS., "from Corinthians to Ephesians," of _The Family Expositor_, was nearly consumed by fire at Ashby; Hervey, the author of that well-known book of which so many have heard but so few have read, _Meditations among the Tombs_; Madan, a lawyer who, going to hear John Wesley, in order that he might mimic him before his companions, listened to a sermon on the text, "Prepare to meet thy G.o.d," was converted by it, and upon his return, said in reply to the question, "Have you taken off the old Methodist?"

"No, gentlemen, but he has taken me off!" and from that day devoted himself to the service of G.o.d; Moses Browne, afterwards Vicar of Olney, and many others.

"Good Lady Huntingdon," he wrote from Ashby, "goes on acting the part of 'a mother in Israel' more and more. For a day or two she has had five clergymen under her roof, which makes her Ladys.h.i.+p look like a good archbishop with his chaplains around him. Her house is a Bethel; to us in the ministry it looks like a college. We have the sacrament every morning, heavenly conversation all day, and preach at night: this is to live at Court indeed."

Lady Huntingdon's London house continued for very many years to be a centre of evangelistic effort on behalf of many of the highest rank and social status in the capital. In addition to Whitefield, John and Charles Wesley, Romaine, Madan, Venn, and others preached. Among those who were converted by these sermons were the wife and sister of Lord Chesterfield; the latter, Lady Gertrude Hotham, opening her house for the preaching of the Gospel. Lady Huntingdon was no recluse.

Uncompromising as she was in every matter where religious principle was involved, she was always ready to avail herself of the true privileges of pleasure which her rank and position enabled her to enjoy. In this way she cultivated the acquaintance of many of the distinguished personages of her time. She was fond of music, and in early life had become acquainted with Handel. In the closing years of the great composer, the intimacy was renewed, and not long before his death she paid him a visit, of which she has left this account: "I have had a most pleasing interview with Handel, an interview which I shall not soon forget. He is now old, and at the close of his long career; yet he is not dismayed at the prospect before him. Blessed be G.o.d for the comforts and consolations which the Gospel affords in every situation and in every time of our need! Mr. Madan has been with him often, and he seems much attached to him." With Giardini also, whose skill on the violin was at that time the theme of universal admiration, Lady Huntingdon was well acquainted. He often played at concerts of sacred music given at her house, and those of Lady Gertrude Hotham and Lady Chesterfield. At the request of the Countess he composed tunes for some of the hymns in frequent use at her chapels, thus giving Horace Walpole occasion to remark, "It will be a great acquisition to the Methodist sect to have their hymns set by Giardini." Tomaso Giordani, another Italian, composed at her request the old familiar tune "Cambridge," for the hymn in the Countess's book commencing, "Father, how wide Thy glory s.h.i.+nes!"

VI.

LADY HUNTINGDON'S CHAPELS.

From the appointment of Whitefield as her chaplain, Lady Huntingdon took a commanding position in the development of that section of Methodism which looked rather to Whitefield than to Wesley as its leader, and which held Calvinistic views. Around the Countess gradually gathered such fellow-workers as Romaine, Venn, Toplady, Fletcher of Madeley, and many others equally with them aflame with love for the peris.h.i.+ng souls of men. Religion having become largely a mere matter of outward form where it was not wholly ignored, great numbers of the clergy being both ignorant of the true nature of the Gospel and very unwilling that others should preach it, Lady Huntingdon was led to establish chapels in different parts of Great Britain. In some parts she rented buildings; in others she built chapels; and gradually a considerable number of places of wors.h.i.+p, largely originated by her, and almost wholly sustained by her, came into being. She herself always wished these to remain connected with the Church of England. She endeavoured to keep their pulpits supplied with clergymen of her way of thinking, and for a time succeeded. But the growth of the work early led her to apply the free agency of lay preachers; and later in life the refusal of the Church of England, upheld by the Courts, to consider her action legal in considering them to belong to the Established Church, drove her in self-defence to const.i.tute her chapels into a connexion with a legal standing and rights. The hostility on the part of many within the Established Church of the eighteenth century, to true New Testament ministry and practice, on the one hand expelled the Wesleyans from the National Church, and on the other compelled Lady Huntingdon to add one more to the dissenting bodies.

The most noted of the churches which thus came into being were those at Brighton, Bath, and Spa Fields. The first named stood upon the site in North Street, now occupied by a later, larger, and more ornate structure. Whitefield visited Brighton, first preaching there in the open air in 1759. This led to the formation of a Christian Society, and in 1761 Lady Huntingdon built a chapel, to defray the cost of which she sold her jewels, realising in this way the sum of nearly 700. The building was opened in 1761, Martin Madan conducting the first services, and being immediately succeeded by such notable preachers as Romaine, Berridge, Venn, and Fletcher.

Lady Huntingdon's connection with Bath began as early as 1739, and for the next twenty-five years she was frequently in that fas.h.i.+onable resort; but it was not until 1765 that she bought the land and established the famous Vineyards Chapel. On October 6, 1765, the chapel was dedicated, and Whitefield preached the first sermon. "Though a wet day," he wrote, "the place was very full, and a.s.suredly the Great Shepherd and Bishop of souls consecrated and made it holy ground by His presence." Romaine and Fletcher often preached at Bath in the early months of the chapel's history, and the latter thus referred to his ministry: "This place is the seat of Satan's gaudy throne; the Lord hath, nevertheless, a few names here, who are not ashamed of Him, and of whom He is not ashamed, both among the poor and among the rich."

It was in this chapel that there was the noted "Nicodemus Corner," a seat carefully shrouded from the public gaze, where sometimes a n.o.bleman and sometimes a bishop heard the goodness of the Gospel.

In this connection may be quoted the following anecdote, given in the Life of Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck, who visited Bath with her mother in 1788. She writes:--

"My mother grew better, she frequently took me with her to the Pump Room, and she sometimes told me anecdotes of those she had seen there when a child. On one occasion, when the room was thronged with company--and at that time the visitors of Bath were equally distinguished for rank and fas.h.i.+on--a simple, humble woman, dressed in the severest garb of the Society of Friends, walked into the midst of the a.s.sembly and began an address to them on the vanity and follies of the world, and the insufficiency of dogmatic without spiritual religion.

The company seemed taken by surprise, and their attention was arrested for a few moments; as the speaker proceeded, and spoke more and more against the customs of the world, signs of disapprobation appeared.

Amongst those present was one lady with a stern yet high-toned expression of countenance, her air was distinguished; she sat erect, and listened intently to the speaker. The impatience of the hearers soon became unrestrained. As the Quaker spoke of giving up the world and its pleasures, hisses, groans, beating of sticks, and cries of 'Down, down!'

burst from every quarter. Then the lady I have described arose with dignity, and slowly pa.s.sing through the crowd, where a pa.s.sage was involuntarily opened to her, she went up to the speaker, and thanked her, in her own name and in that of all present, for the faithfulness with which she had borne testimony to the truth. The lady added, 'I am not of your persuasion, nor has it been my belief that our s.e.x are generally deputed to be public teachers; but G.o.d who gives the rule can make the exception, and He has indeed put it in the hearts of all His children to honour and venerate fidelity to His commission. Again I gratefully thank you.' Side by side with the Quaker she walked to the door of the Pump Room, and then resumed her seat. This lady was the celebrated Countess of Huntingdon." [1]

[Footnote 1: _Autobiography of Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck_, vol. 1. pp.

89, 90.]