Elizabeth: the Disinherited Daugheter by E. Ben Ez-er
page 29 of 63 (46%)
page 29 of 63 (46%)
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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, but still insisted that they never cost a tithe of what they were worth. Nor was the gratification of this ardent lover of Methodism the chief result of this chapel arrangement. There the Church found asylum from persecution; and if we may estimate the value of such a refuge from the alarm of the enemy it must have proved a precious boon. Often were the pious band obliged to come early and lock themselves in to escape the fury of the mob, which would curse and mock without. But sometimes, unable to reach them or seriously to annoy them by their howlings, they would vent their spite upon the premises. Now it would be by breaking windows. Again, finding the windows guarded with thick board blinds, they would tear down fences, fill the well with wood, etc. In several instances it came out in one way and another that some attendant of the "standing order" furnished the rum that stimulated the rabble to make these attempts to drive off these "deceivers of the last days, that should deceive the very elect." But "the more they afflicted them the more they multiplied and grew;" so that in a few years the place became "too strait for them." Even members of the mob of one meeting would be "awakened" while listening for something to mock, and scarcely able to restrain themselves, while with their comrades they would come early to the next meeting, get fastened in with the pious and the penitent, and, making humble confession, seek and find salvation, and become lively members of the church they had persecuted. Who can estimate the amount of good done in that "upper room" at the dawn of the nineteenth century? "When God writeth up his people" of how many will it be counted, "This man was born there?" Who can stand on the hill |
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