Memoirs of Elizabeth Cairns

Written by herself some years before her death, and now taken from her original Copy with great care and diligence.*

* A reprint of edition issued in 1857 with preface by Mr. Peter Drummond, Stirling, who says, among other things, “The experience of Elizabeth Cairns is surely a rebuke to our coldness, deadness, prayerlessness, and want of thirsting for God . . . Read it prayerfully, and you will have reason to thank God for the gracious awakening, enlightening, and refreshing it will afford.”

“Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul.”—PSALM lxvi. 16.

“As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of Hosts.”—PSALM xlvi. 8.

“Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”—2 COR. iii. 18.

AS I was informed by my parents, I was born in the year 1685, when the persecution was very sharp, and through the bloody cruelty which was then exercised my parents were deprived of all they had in the world, and cast out of house and hold, because of their joining with, and adhering and cleaving to the then persecuted Gospel and remnant. In this extremity, my mother, by the providence of God, got into a little cottage, where she brought me forth, a living child, to the hazard of her own life. And three-quarters of a year thereafter, my parents got an opportunity of a persecuted minister, by whom I was baptized in the night-time. The consideration of this my parents’ duty towards me, to the hazard of their own lives, laid me under the greater obligation to resolve through grace that I should carry dutifully towards them all the days of my life. I desire to look back upon my birth and baptism with admiration and thanksgiving. This early providence of a merciful and gracious God to me, makes me to say with the Psalmist, “I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvellous are thy works. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God!” etc. I desire to admire the merciful arms that were so early stretched out to receive me into His Church, and the mercy of baptism by a faithful minister of Christ.

I now come to give an account of the Lord’s way with my soul in the several years and periods of my life.

FIRST PERIOD.

It pleased God, from all eternity, to choose a remnant from among the lost posterity of Adam to be monuments of His grace and mercy here, and instruments of His praise hereafter; amongst whom I hope He did enrol my name, and in order to the accomplishment of this design, He early began His work with me. I do remember when I was a child I heard others talking of God, and I asked my sister what that was they called God? My sister proposed this question to another, who informed me that God was a Spirit, and that He had His being of Himself, and was the Creator and Maker of all things.

After this, I had such impressions of that God that made me that no children’s play could long divert me. About this time, being in the open field, I saw the rainbow appear before the shower, at the sight of which I fell a weeping, for I had heard tell that God once drowned the world with a flood of water, and as a token He would not do it again He set His bow in the cloud, the sight of which made me entertain more and more impressions of this God, so that I thought the Sabbath-day had another kind of light than another day.

There was an accidental providence I met with when I was five years old. I was keeping the sheep with my sister. As I was going along the top of a considerable rock, at the foot of which was a ditch of water, I fell over, but providentially in the face of the rock there was a thorn-bush growing, which I got hold of, by which means I got up again. This the Lord remarkably blessed to me, for though I was not hurt by this fall, yet it had such impressions on my mind that I immediately fell a reflecting upon this providence, for I saw, if I had gone down, my life could not have been preserved. I had heard tell that there was a hell and a heaven, so I thought with myself if I had died I would have gone to hell. I had such fears of it that frightened me, for I had dreamed that I saw folk going by, and one of them told me that they were in hell, and that it was a dreadful place. I asked what made it so, and one answered me that the wrath of God was there.

After this I heard a person praying in my father’s family. One expression he had in prayer stayed in my mind for some time. The word was what we have in Isaiah xi. 1, 2: “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots, and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.” And many expressions he had in prayer that made me to understand that He of whom the prophet there spoke was the Saviour, and my fears of hell made me to notice and remember it.

After this, my mother began to learn me to read, and, as I remember, it was before the eighth year of my age. On which I make the following reflections:—

1. I acknowledge I am one of Adam’s corrupt race, in whose room He stood and fell. I was formed in sin, and brought forth in iniquity, and came into the world with every faculty of my soul corrupt, under the guilt of original sin and curse of the law, and so an heir of hell and wrath.

2. I desire to adore the sovereign goodwill of a gracious God to me that made me capable of, and also to feel, two parties in my soul so early, as that of evil and good, of darkness and light; but when this light and love to good was infused and put there I know not, yet I came to know it by its effects. (1) This light discovered to me that I was a sinner, and that there was a hell to punish sinners in. (2) This light discovered a God, a Saviour, and a heaven. (3) It made impressions on the several passions of my soul; a discovery of sin and hell brought a great fear and terror on my mind; the discoveries of God and Christ kindled a love in my soul and desires towards Him. (4) It had an effect on my outward life, so as I could not take pleasure in children’s play and diversions. (5) It spiritualised other things, for by this light I was made to see a God in the works of creation, such as the growing of the grass, the winds and the rains, and the bow He set in the cloud as the token of His covenant with the earth, and that He would not destroy it again by water. And when I looked up to the airy heavens, oh! what glorious things were these: the sun, the moon, and the stars. My parents told me that God made all these things, and I believed it. I remember I would have gone out after daylight had gone away and looked up to the stars with great pleasure, and, as I looked, I felt a believing impression that filled me both with fear and joy. (6) I observe that what I was taught by this light was conform to the Scriptures, although at that time I was not learned to read them. This is an evidence to me that it was the Lord’s teaching, though it was but like the dawning of the morning. I was at a great loss that I was not sooner learned to read; one reason was, that the place where I lived was not near any school, as also my parents did not incline to learn their children till they were about eight years old, thinking that they might have the better capacity to retain what they were taught. So much for reflections on this first period of my life.

(To be continued.)