A LETTER OF MISS HELEN PLUMTREE, NOTTINGHAM, GIVING AN ACCOUNT OF HER CONVERSION.
12th August, 1818.
On looking back to your letter, I find there is a question still unanswered, a question which I could spend eternity in answering, and ever find something new to say, something more of my own exceeding vileness, and the abundant riches of grace in Christ Jesus. You ask me when and how I was converted. For a brief and very imperfect sketch of this blessed time and event, I must refer you to my journal, in which, I believe, I was tolerably faithful to what was going on in my heart—a heart more resolutely bent on the pursuit of rest and enjoyment on earth, I can scarcely imagine—I say pursuit, for I certainly never overtook them. My god was then the applause and love of fellow-worms, and oh, what costly sacrifices did I make to it. For this I studied, I read, I meditated: but how can I describe to you the vanity, the emptiness of my labours. How can I tell you the vexation of spirit they cost me: when I seemed to have reached the pinnacle of my desires, and in anticipation, heard myself spoken of as a remarkably clever, and peculiarly sensible girl, I beheld another before me; I heard of another that far outwent me; chilling envy blasted my hopes; I again sunk back, but again began to toil up the hill. Truly I had a hard task-master. At this time mind and body were preying on each other. I was morose, sullen, wretched. A superior excellency in any one was a sufficient ground for jealousy, and you will scarcely believe how strongly I felt towards my own sisters.
But though possessed with this frightful legion, though anxiously desiring to dwell among the tombs, I must acknowledge that I often endeavoured to bind them with cords and chains of my own manufacturing; but this only served to discover more of their strength and malignity in breaking the chains asunder and casting the cords away. The season of Lent was, I think, almost as long as I can remember, a time when I was very much engaged in this employment. I cannot now, without shuddering, think of the solemn vows with which again and again I bound myself to the Lord, and called upon Him to record that in heaven which I was about to trample under foot on earth. The walls of your present apartments were witnesses to these awful transactions; and had the stone cried out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber answered it, to proclaim my shame and pronounce my condemnation, thou, O my injured Lord, might have been justified when they spoke, and clear, when they thus judged. I do not believe I then ever thought myself deserving of everlasting burnings; but I could not but feel my total unpreparedness for heaven; nay, such was the enmity of my heart against God, that could I have made out a title to heaven, I believe I should have chosen a title to hell. There was nothing gloomy, nothing tedious, nothing wearisome, which I did not attach to my ideas of heaven: and well do I remember, when a dear, partial friend tried to comfort me in a time of sickness (when I was always very low spirited), and said, “You have nothing to make yourself unhappy about, you will go to a better world if you leave this,” the bitter tears which this assurance cost me, the loathing with which my unholy soul contemplated a better world. And now you may well imagine I had a horror of dying, feeling, as I did, that to whichever world I went, I must be wretched. How fearful was I of falling asleep lest death should come upon me, foolishly thinking I could keep it off by waking and watching. A birthday which I spent at N—n, I think in 1813, seemed to thicken my gloomy cloud. H—y read a sermon (of Paley’s, I think) on the love of God. However dark the poor author might be on the subject, he convinced me of one thing, that I had no love to God. I could almost wish to see the room again where I slept, and to sit down once more in the well-remembered spot, where, with streaming eyes and a bursting heart, I wrote in my journal, as the last hour of my birthday struck, “I see nothing but everlasting burnings before me, and I cannot turn out of the way.” I was brought to this conclusion, not so much from a conviction of sin, as from the assurance I felt that one who so hated God must be wretched, and that there was no heaven made for such. O how did I wish that I had never been born! What would I not have given to have been annihilated? I should be ungrateful did I not here confess that my beloved D—’s letters often drew a veil over promised pleasures, and tended to nourish my salutary uneasiness, though they did not exactly point out a remedy for me. I now went about yet further and worked still harder, to make myself meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. No old monk, perhaps, ever practised much greater austerities than I did, continually thwarting my bodily appetites to the satisfaction of the more frightful and hungry spiritual ones of pride and vain glory.
At this time, hearing that one was expected at F—, who had long flattered my vanity, and taken possession of my carnal heart, I had now new prospects, new schemes, new desires. I may truly say, at this period, I was greedy of destruction. I tremble when I see myself hanging by a single cord, as it were, over unfathomable ruin. I would be thankful, I would love much, when I remember that that was a cord of everlasting love, held by the hand which I nailed to the tree. The time arrived, the time when I would have fain put the Lord far from me: when I tried to escape every thought of him myself, but tried only to discover that I was linked by a chain that I could not break. It were vain to attempt to relate to you all that passed between me and my God during this month: I love to talk to Him about it, to go to Him with that sweet plea for intimacy and love, “Thou hast known my soul in adversities: when my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path.” I am really overwhelmed when I review the tenderness, the love, and the pity with which He bore with me. I may well say “His gentleness hath made me great.” I laboured in the very fires to please the creature, and to be pleased and satisfied with it. Even then I would have set up a throne for him in my heart, and trampled on my God. Could anything have satisfied me but God, and given me rest and peace, gladly would I have taken it. I had just sufficient sight in my soul to discover that there was something wanting in one whom I strove to think perfection—what it was I could not say—and this was my strange answer to Him. Oh, days much to be remembered, struggling to follow my Moses out of Egypt, yet struggling to keep peace with my Pharaoh, even on the hard conditions of making brick without straw. One hour, fancying music in my chains, apparently happy in my old master’s service; the next hour prostrate in my room in an agony of tears, wearied with His service, and longing for, yet afraid to try another master. Ah, my precious Lord, thou only canst know how I now served thee; how often my heart would have thrust thee away and said, “I will not have this man to reign over me.” At length I was carried through such a line of conduct as broke the bands I would have strengthened. . . . I truly was not myself during the last breakfast. . . . While man thought I felt nothing, my God is witness, what a bleeding heart I endeavoured to surrender to Him. And, oh, that I may witness before men and angels, how tenderly He healed the wounds, how gently He probed, when necessary, how gladly He poured in the oil and the wine, how He rejoiced over a heart so vile, that I could not bear to keep it for myself, and only gave it to Him because I was tired of it. Truly, my Jesus, it was thou that didst spread Thy skirt over me when I was yet lying in my blood. Thou madest me comely through thy comeliness, and fragrant through the sweet odour of Thine atonement.
With the very, very little knowledge I then had of myself, you will not be surprised to hear that I fancied my Dagon was utterly demolished and God the sole possessor of my heart. . . . About a month afterwards an event took place which showed that Dagon was only a little broken, and still erected opposite to the ark. On the twenty-eighth of February, 1814, Jehovah made bare His holy arm, and indeed overthrew him. How great was the fall thereof! My prison doors were burst, my chains broken. “My son, give me thine heart,” was a command as cheering and delightful to me as it before had been melancholy and irksome. Had I possessed millions of hearts I should have thought them too few to give to my beloved Lord. Though my treatment of Him had been so peculiarly base, I felt nothing like fear, restraint, or reserve. His company was all I desired; my only sad moments were those when I was forced away from Him. I leaned on His bosom, and entered into rest. It was my day of espousals, and never did bride so rejoice in her bridegroom as my soul rejoiced in her beloved. And now methinks as to what followed, I would defer speaking of it till I get within the New Jerusalem, and hear the gates for ever closed against pride, vain-glory, and self-applause; till I could feel sure that the speaker and the hearer would ascribe all praise unto Him to whom alone it is due. I was, indeed, very zealous; but how much self-seeking, how much animal feeling, how much idea there was of making myself more deserving of my Saviour by my works, He alone knows! From that time to the present hour I know not that I have had a question of my safety for more than ten minutes at a time. Though I have had some gloomy, wintry days, and though my manners in the wilderness since the day that I knew my precious Lord, have been abominable, I should hope, beyond what He suffers from any others, yet goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life, and I am enabled to sing on my road, however rough, “I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.”
My paper is almost full, and yet I seem to have told you nothing—nothing, as I ought to have told you, of boundless love and boundless sin; but indeed I never retraced my steps on paper before, and have seldom related them to anyone. If they lead you, my beloved sister, to praise and trust my gracious God, I shall rejoice in having sent them and complied with your wish, instead of choosing a subject which, I should have guessed, would have been more profitable. Only let me caution you not to be cast down by anything I have said, as though no change had taken place in you. There are thousands now around the throne who cannot say exactly how or when they were converted. He has led many by a way by which they knew not; and they scarcely opened their eyes or dared to think they were on the way to the celestial city, till they beheld the Lamb face to face, without one cloud between. Do you think you could love Him if you got there? Do you think you could like to hear Him praised? Then be assured, though it was at a time and in a manner you knew not, He that is mighty to save hath taken away that heart which is enmity against Himself, or rather, hath implanted another heart which shall be more than conqueror over the carnal mind.