Part 21 (2/2)
”Now, my dear friend, I have done with what I had to say on this head. I have had great fears of wounding, lest you should reckon me among Job's friends; but you call me mother, and it is required of a mother to be faithful. I now leave it with the Lord. We are delighted to find you girding up the loins of your mind and setting about active duty. Let us meet at a throne of grace, and look to the course the Lord marks out for us.”
To Mrs. G---- Y----.
”MY DEAR MADAM--I have just parted with my dear afflicted friend Mrs. C----; she left it in charge to me, that I should write to you in the time of your affliction. Surely I would do any thing whatever that I thought might alleviate either her or your distress. But there are cases to which G.o.d alone can speak; afflictions which he alone can console. Such are those under which the sufferer is commanded to be 'still and know that he is G.o.d.' He never leaves his people in any case, but sometimes shuts them up from human aid. Their grief is too great to be consoled by human tongue or pen.
”Such I have experienced. I lost my only son; I neither know when nor where; and for any thing I know, in a state of rebellion against G.o.d. Here at my heart it lies still; who can speak to me of it?
neither can I reason upon it. Aaron held his peace. Old Eli said, 'It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth him good.' Samuel in his turn had his heart wrung by his unG.o.dly son. David lamented over his beloved Absalom; but it availed him nothing. Job's sons and daughters were all cut off in one day; he himself lay in deep, sore bodily affliction; his friends sat seven days and seven nights without opening their mouths, because they saw his affliction was very great; and if they spoke, it was to aggregate it; and when G.o.d himself spoke, he gave him no reason for his dealings, but charged him with folly and madness.
'Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him? He that reproveth G.o.d, let him answer it.' Then he laid his hand on his mouth, confessed himself vile, and became dumb before G.o.d; abhorring himself, and repenting in dust and ashes, instead of the splendid catalogue of virtues enumerated in chapter 29, and complaints in chapter 10, which I make not the least doubt were true, as far as human virtue can reach; but if G.o.d charge even his angels with folly, shall man, corrupt, self-destroyed man, plead merit before G.o.d?
”But, my dear friend, I do not find in all G.o.d's Bible any thing requiring us to acquiesce in the final destruction of any, for whom we have prayed, pleaded, and committed to him; least of all, our offspring whom he has commanded us to train up for him. Children are G.o.d's heritage. I do not say he has given us any promise for the obstinately wicked; but when cut off, he only requires us to be still, to hold our peace. I do not think he takes hope from us. G.o.d has set limits to our faith for others; our faith must not rest in opposition to his threatenings. We must believe that the wicked shall be turned into h.e.l.l, and all that forget G.o.d; but he hath set no bounds to his own mercy; in that glorious plan of redemption, by which he subst.i.tutes his own Son in the stead of sinners, he has made provision for the chief of sinners, and can now be just and consistent while he justifies the unG.o.dly who believe in Jesus. Short was the time between the thief's pet.i.tion and the promise of salvation; nay, the pet.i.tion was the earnest of it. The same was the case with the jailer; I think, too, the publican had the earnest in his pet.i.tion. Now, instead of laboring to bring my mind to acquiesce in the condemnation of my child, on the supposition of its being for G.o.d's glory, I try to be still, as he has commanded: not to follow my child to the yet invisible world; but turning my eyes to that character which G.o.d has revealed of himself--to the plan of redemption--to the sovereignty of G.o.d in the execution of that plan--to his names of grace, 'The Lord, the Lord G.o.d, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin,'
while he adds, 'and that will by no means clear the guilty;' I meet it with his own declaration, 'He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of G.o.d in him.' I read also that 'mercy rejoiceth against judgment,' and many other like scriptures, which, although I dare not ground a belief of his salvation on them, afford one ray of hope after another, that G.o.d may have made him a monument of mercy to the glory of his grace.
”Thus G.o.d himself consoles his own praying people, while man ought to be very cautious, if not silent, where the Scriptures are silent, as it respects the final state of another, whose heart we cannot know, nor what G.o.d may have wrought in it. G.o.d hath set bounds to our faith, which can nowhere find solid ground to fix upon but in his own written promise. Yet, as I said above, he has set no bounds to his own mercy, and he has made provision for its boundless flow, as far as he shall please to extend it, through the atonement and merits of his own Son, 'who is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto G.o.d by him,' Now, my dear friend, you have my ideas of our situation; if they be correct, I pray that our compa.s.sionate Father may comfort you by them; if otherwise, may he pardon what is amiss, and lead you, my dear friend C----, and myself, to such consolation as he himself will own as the work of his Spirit, and save us from the enemy and our own spirit.
”Since writing the foregoing, I feel afraid of what I have said; it is dangerous seeking comfort where the Scriptures are silent; yet while we plead with G.o.d to be preserved from error, and try to be still before him, he will save us from the subtlety of the serpent, as well as from the rage of the lion. I am, with love,
”Your sympathizing friend,
”ISABELLA GRAHAM.”
”ROCKAWAY, September 10, 1811.
”I have been here four Sabbaths. The first I spent at home, the weather not permitting our going abroad; the second I spent at a prayer-meeting with the Methodist brethren; the third we rode to Hempstead, where I heard two plain gospel sermons from Mr. C----, Presbyterian minister; and the last I attended at the Episcopal church, same place; heard a good plain gospel sermon from Mr. H----, and witnessed the dispensation of the Lord's supper.
”To sing the praises of our redeeming G.o.d, and to lift up my heart in prayer with my fellow-sinners, in the comfortable hope that there are other living souls praising and praying with me, refreshes me: to hear the word of G.o.d read, and to be led to meditate upon it, however simple and common the exposition, also refreshes me. I am generally led to pray much for minister and people; to consider myself as one with them in Christ. However weak his natural powers, however few or small his talents, if I have reason to think that he is taught of G.o.d that which flesh and blood cannot teach, I desire to esteem him highly for his work's sake. I thank G.o.d for the meanest and weakest of such: I believe they never labor in vain. 'Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings,' in talents as well as in years, G.o.d will perfect praise.
”In this new world, thickly settled in many places with natural men 'eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage,' while the flood of wrath is hastening to overwhelm them, and none to warn them of their danger, nor point out the ark of safety; shall such men be reckoned of none account, and their labors of no value? No, the wealth of both Indies cannot balance their work; nor all the talents ever possessed by fallen man, with all the orthodoxy which mere talents are capable of acquiring, without that divine teaching which many of those, thus contemned, possess. That same small discourse, those few plain points, these same things repeated in the same way, contain truths by which sinners may be saved, by which sinners shall be saved.
”Suppose, for it is but a supposition, that these men have made a mistake. They are the Lord's, and in their place by his providence. He will be forth-coming for them, and without miracle. From him shall their fruit be found, and his power be manifested by their weakness.
Exert your energies, ye gifted doctors of divinity; and may the Lord prosper the means used to produce a ministry which shall render attendance upon their ministrations the interest of both the understanding and the heart. Persuade men who are adding field to field, house to house, thousand to thousand, to provide a competent maintenance for them. If these last remain obstinate, and it be idle to hope that youths of talents without fortune, whatever be their piety, will serve the church of G.o.d at the expense of devoting themselves to infallible penury, and all the wretchedness which belongs to it--is it wise to weaken the hands and discourage the hearts of those ministers already settled pastors, or to furnish their people with arguments in their own vindication for leaving them in want and penury?”
In the year 1811, some gentlemen of New York established a Magdalen Society: they elected a board of ladies, requesting their aid to superintend the internal management of the Magdalen House. This board chose Mrs. Graham their presiding lady, which office she held until her decease; the duties attendant on it she discharged with fidelity and zeal. In 1812 the trustees of the Lancasterian school solicited the attendance of several pious ladies, to give catechetical instruction to their scholars one afternoon in every week: and Mrs.
Graham was one of those who attended regularly to this duty.
CHAPTER XI.
DEVOTIONAL EXERCISES AND CORRESPONDENCE.
”FEBRUARY 8, 1812.
”'By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward: choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of G.o.d, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.' Heb. 11:24.
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