THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE OF A SCHOOLMISTRESS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
(Written with her own Hand.)
(Continued from page 256.)
SOME REMARKABLE PASSAGES I MET WITH IN THAT PLACE CALLED THE BRIDGE-END OF INSCOL, NEAR OLDEARN.
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The Lord wrought a great deliverance for me in bringing forth of twins (when I was so low that for a long time before I was not able to stir myself, but as I was helped by two persons from one place to another) beyond the expectation both of myself and others.
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His care of me in guiding of these children, as (1) By providing nurses for them, both men’s wives, when I would have no other. My strait was great, being unable to nurse them myself, and nurses very ill to be had. He helped me to use no unlawful means, but to depend upon Himself for guiding me in all things that concerned them. As for instance, when I might have had one of them well settled, I durst not let him go to a place where the master of the ground had taken the Declaration; and the Lord did so countenance me therein that the woman was content to come into my house, though she did not stand in need so to do.
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As to their being baptized, I delayed it for some reasons till I had a more convenient occasion; whereupon I fell into a sore distemper. It was so with me at that time that, upon search, the Lord was pleased to show me His mind in the Providence. Now, whether my frailty or the usualness of the distemper occasioned a slender search, I know not; but week after week, for four times together, I fell into that distemper till I was almost gone, till one day, I lying under the distemper, one of the children was reading her ordinary, and I overhearing the place was about the circumstance of the Lord’s meeting with Moses in the inn, and seeking to slay him till he circumcised his child (Exod. iv. 24), and then he lets him go. Now, I had never marked that place before, but was then made to apply it, and instantly sent for a minister and told him the passage, and he baptized the children, after which I presently recovered, and was never more troubled with that disease, and got this notable confirmation of infant baptism.
As for these children, I might set down many things expressing the Lord’s great tenderness to both of them and me during their abode with me, and giving me them back several times from apparent death, by laying hold on His promise brought to my hand in time of straits, and likewise in preparing me to let them go when He called me so to do, and when their days were near a period. This He did two ways: (1) Whereas I was wont at the removal of my children to be troubled for omission of duty to them. To prevent that trouble, the Lord set me a-work to seek direction in all things they were concerned in, and was not wanting to bow to me even in very mean things wherein these children were concerned, and this kept off old challenges when He took them away. A second way was by threatening me with the want of the Gospel, which I thought I had sold all away for, and was put to renew my resolution in thinking no trouble great if He would continue it with me. Then He took me at my word, and took both the children from me in one month, and gave me a new tack of the Gospel, and made me well pleased with the exchange. The matter was thus: There was a party within a mile came to take away Mr. Thomas Hog, whom the Lord had signally sent to me; whereupon I went to the Lord and begged of Him that He would continue His servant with me, and keep him out of his enemies’ hands, and take from me what He pleased. The Lord was pleased to incline His ear to me, and, contrary to all expectation, they were made to go their way without coming near the place where he was, though he had waited for them all that day, for he could not flee. Then, a little after, the Lord removed the children, and I thought it was my duty to keep my engagement, which the Lord helped me to, and made the removal of them very tolerable. Now, this hath been the Lord’s way with me all along, even as with a child. When He hath been about to cross me in something desirable, then He either threatened or took away from me somewhat as desirable at least, and so set me upon the deprecating the evil threatened, or to seek after the good taken from me, and so meets with it in the time the affliction comes upon me. Then I was set a-work to search the cause of the removal of the children. And (1) the Lord comforted me with this, That there was no wrath in the stroke. (2) He intimated to me that it behoved me to go out of that place where I had been for twenty years, and where I had met with much kindness. But that Word sounding still in my ears, “Come with me, my love, come with me from Lebanon, &c.,” drew me to say, “I will go with thee to the ends of the earth.” I then began to suspect that it was His mind that I should leave that country. Yet, before I spake to any about it, I set five several diets apart to seek His mind in it, and still was airthed one way, viz., that south I behoved to go. Then I told it to my most intimate friends, from whom I met with no small opposition; and I had likewise great difficulty from my affections in parting with my acquaintances, yet I was still resolved over all impediments to follow His call, which was frequently confirmed to be of Him.
But my acquaintances thinking it had been discouragement for want of employment when I had gone to Ross to take leave of my friends there, they set about the getting of several gentlemen’s children in the country and brought them to me, which put me to a demur; but, not daring to venture till I solemnly sought the Lord about it, He cleared up to me that I was to go, yet this was not the appointed time. Whereupon I stayed still that year, and the Lord countenanced it to the advantage of several of the children, and especially by a wonderful change upon two of the wildest natures that were among them, and by some beginnings of good in others, which the Lord afterwards brought to maturity. So my thoughts of going south were suspended.
Another passage, somewhat remarkable, was: One day, going to hear a sermon, and finding some difficulties in the way, I fell to read Matt. xii. 5, where I saw that in some cases there were other things acceptable on Sabbath-days than worship; and, reading again, I met with Psalm 16—”My goodness extendeth not to thee, but to the saints.” From both places I gathered that there was some other thing called for at my hand than hearing, so I went back (though I had gone so far on the way to hear, yet with little peace) and waited a little till I saw what would follow. And there comes a choice Christian woman, who told me that she could have no peace till she came, and desired me to make all speed imaginable to bring a precious friend of ours out of a house he lived in, for he was near gone, and under great soul-trouble, and wanted help. Spare not, said she, the Sabbath, for the matter requires haste. Which, when I thought upon, I was free to do, finding it as she said, yet I brought him not away till to-morrow; but he was diverted from the great soul-trouble he was under. But if I had stayed longer I would not have gotten him away, which proved the mean of his recovery, by the help of Mr. Thomas Hog his company and prayers. I was made to be much concerned about his recovery, and at length the Lord assured me of his life if he would resolve never to go back to that family again, for the master of it was under some public guilt. This I told him, and he, resolving never to go to it except the Lord cleared to him a call for the same, hereupon he recovered presently, and stayed still after his recovery. But being often called back again, and respecting them because he had been long with them, he went back, and not long after took the same disease again. Then he confessed to me that he had been faulty in going there against such warning as he had, and so I was taken away, and behoved to leave him on his death-bed (though contrary to his desire and mine), and not to be with him at his death.
Another passage was: One day I was much inclined to go and see a precious woman that lived at some distance; yet the weather being cold and I frail, I met with some opposition in my going, but had no peace to stay. And when I came she took pains and was delivered of a child. Now, I was directed there for three reasons: 1. There was none she so much desired to be with her at such a time, and yet, through tenderness of me, I being sickly, she desired me not. 2. She never being well after that child-bearing, it was that I might have no challenge for being deficient in any thing that might have been for her satisfaction. 3. I had occasion to know her straits by my being there, which were very great, He being to take her away, that I might the more easily dispense with her, for she was very dear to me. This was another argument. The Lord made intimation to me that He would raise one in her place that would be of far more use than she was in capacity to have been; which came to pass by the Lord’s raising up in that country that burning and shining light, the worthy Lady Kilravock, who during her short continuance proved a great blessing to that country by promoting the Gospel, and being a companion to all those that feared God, and discountenancing all ungodliness and ungodly persons. I observe this, that it was the Lord’s way with me when He was about to take any thing very desirable from me, He still used such arguments to draw my heart to submission as were most prevalent with me, but especially either giving or promising as good or better than He took from me, until He put me in some capacity by frequent sights of the end of all perfection, to satisfy myself with the Lord in the want of all things that could be promising, either for my satisfaction or the helping forward His work in the land.
(To be Continued.)
What we have come to.—A study of the subjects dealt with on the Lord’s Day in some of our larger cities must awaken painful feelings. Looking over the church notices column of one of the Glasgow evening papers, we find intimation of the following:—”No more Defective Men: A Startling Discovery;” “Young Housekeepers;” “Football and Religion;” “Japan as a Factor in Politics and Religion;” and “How to make the Christmas merry.” One church has the interesting intimation:—Mrs. Laws, the wife of the Moderator, who is presumably to address the congregation at the morning service. One of the preachers intimates his subject as “Fools at Play,” which, with all respect to the preacher, may be a very apt description of himself and many of his brother preachers in Glasgow and in other places. Now it is quite within the range of possibility that some of the above subjects might be treated in a way becoming the dignity and importance of the pulpit, but the damaging fact remains that these intimations with catchy titles are meant to amuse, and indicate a nature that trifles with momentous realities. The plague is not confined, unfortunately, to the larger cities; it is spreading over the land, and it saddens the heart that there should be such masquerading in the sacred name of religion. The pulpit of all places on the face of the earth is a place where fools should not be suffered, and men with a sense of the awfulness of their commission will not be found trifling there.