The Power of Faith Part 4

"As to the _reading of plays_, or any part of them, to your young people, I must own, it does not appear to me to be expedient; it may be productive of bad consequences, and the _good_ arising from it is, at most, uncertain. It is, no doubt, very desirable to enlarge young people's minds and improve their taste as well as their persons; but such is the state of things in this world, that to attain this to the degree wished for by every person of refined taste, some things must be sacrificed of much greater value: for example, a girl cannot acquire the smart, polished air of a person of fas.h.i.+on, without imbibing too much of the spirit of the world. _Vanity_ and _emulation_ must be awakened and cultivated in the heart, before she will apply herself with diligence to outward accomplishments; nor can her mind and taste be much improved in _polite_ literature, without losing its relish for simple truth. I grant you, there are a few Christians in the world who have acquired the outward accomplishments of it, and have, by grace, been enabled to turn these to good account--who, like the Israelites, having spoiled the Egyptians, have made use of _their_ jewels in adorning the tabernacle; but this can never serve as an argument on your side of the question. If the Lord sees fit to manifest his power and grace by plucking a brand from the burning, this is no reason why children should be initiated into the ways of sin and folly, in hopes that some time or other he will bring them out. We are never to do evil that good may come; and this brings the question to a short issue.

"Do you think it lawful for Christians to attend public places, or to spend their time in reading plays? Do you think these things tend, either immediately or remotely, to promote the glory of G.o.d? If you do not, I cannot see how you, _as a Christian_, can have any hand in introducing young ladies to the one or in giving them a taste for the other.

"This, dear madam, is _my_ view of the matter; but I do not wish _you_ to walk by _my_ light. I believe all the children of G.o.d are _taught by him_, and ought to follow the dictates of their own consciences: I therefore pretend not _to advise_ you, but shall endeavor to _pray_ that the great _unerring_ Counsellor may give you divine wisdom to be your teacher, to lead you into all truth, and to keep you from every thing inconsistent with his holy will.

"I have met with so many interruptions since I began this letter, that I fear that it is hardly intelligible. I shall be sorry if I have said any thing that gives you uneasiness; your spirits seem low, and your business does not succeed so well as could be wished: perhaps I ought to have employed my pen in the way of consolation and encouragement, than by throwing in fresh matter of perplexity. Sure I am, I do not _mean_ to add affliction to the afflicted; but rather have been impelled, from a regard to truth, to write my real sentiments, as you desired.

"Your friend and humble servant,

"W. GLENORCHY."

In after-life, Mrs. Graham was of opinion that she and her scholars had gone too far in conformity with the opinions and manners of the world. A reference to this deviation from what she considered a close Christian walk in life, will be frequently found in her subsequent exercises.

Lady Glenorchy being in a delicate state of health, made frequent use of Mrs. Graham as her almoner to the poor. On one of these visits, Mrs. Graham called on a poor woman with a present of a new gown. "I am obliged to you and her ladys.h.i.+p for your kindness," said the poor woman rich in faith, "but I maun gang to the right airth first; ye wad na hae come, gin ye had na been sent; the Lord hath left me lately wi'

but ae goon for week-day and Sabbath, but now he has sent you wi' a Sabbath-day's goon." Meaning, in plain English, that her thankfulness was first due to the G.o.d of providence, who had put it into the hearts of his children to supply the wants of this poor disciple.

Mrs. Graham used to repeat with pleasure an anecdote of her friends Mr. and Mrs. Douglas. Mr. Douglas was a tallow-chandler, and furnished candles for Lady Glenorchy's chapel. The excise-tax was very high on making those articles, and many persons of the trade were accustomed to defraud the revenue by one stratagem or another.

Religious principle would not permit Mr. Douglas to do so. Mrs. Graham one evening was remarking how handsomely the chapel was lighted. "Aye, Mrs. Graham," said Mrs. Douglas, "and it is all pure--the light is all pure, it burns bright." It would be well if Christians of every trade and profession were to act in like manner; that the merchant should have no hand in unlawfully secreting property, or encouraging perjury to acc.u.mulate gains; that the man of great wealth should have neither usury nor the shedding of blood by privateering to corrode his treasures; that all should observe a just weight and a just measure in their dealings, as in the presence of G.o.d. Let every Christian seek after the consolation of Mrs. Douglas, that the light which refreshes him may be pure.

It being stated as matter of regret, that poor people when sick suffered greatly, although while in health their daily labor supported them, Mrs. Graham suggested the idea of every poor person in the neighborhood laying aside _one penny a week_ to form a fund for relieving the contributors when in sickness. Mr. Douglas undertook the formation of such an inst.i.tution. It went for a long time under the name of "The Penny Society." It afterwards received a more liberal patronage, has now a handsome capital, and is called, "The Society for the Relief of the Dest.i.tute Sick."

In July, 1786, Mrs. Graham attended the dying bed of her friend and patroness Lady Glenorchy: this lady had shown her friends.h.i.+p in a variety of ways during her valuable life; she had one of Mrs. Graham's daughters for some time in her family, condescended herself to instruct her, and sent her for a year to a French boarding-school in Rotterdam. She defrayed all her expenses while there, and furnished her with a liberal supply of pocket-money, that she might not see distress without the power of relieving it. So much does a person's conduct in maturer years depend upon the habits of early life, that it is wise to accustom young people to feel for and to contribute in their degree to the relief of the afflicted and the needy.

Lady Glenorchy was a character in whom was eminently displayed the power of religion. Descended from an ancient family, married to the eldest son of the Earl of Broadalbaine, beautiful and accomplished, she was received into the first circles of society. With her husband she made the tour of Europe, visiting the several courts on that continent. Yet all these things she "counted but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus her Lord." She became a widow while yet in the bloom of youth. She devoted herself to the service of the Lord, and was made singularly useful. She kept a regular account of her income, and of the different objects to which it was applied. She built and supported several chapels in England, and erected one in Edinburgh, in which pious ministers of different denominations should be admitted to preach.

She also built a manufactory for the employment of the poor, where the education of children was strictly attended to: even the porters' lodges on each side of her gate were occupied as schools for the neighboring poor. Her pleasure-grounds were thrown open for the accommodation of the numbers who usually come from a distance to attend a communion-season in Scotland. In a year of scarcity the same grounds were planted with potatoes for the supply of the poor. She distributed with great judgment various sums of money in aid of families who were poor, yet deserving. She never encouraged idleness or pride, and often remarked that it was better to a.s.sist people to do well in the sphere which Providence had a.s.signed them, than to attempt to raise them beyond it. There was so much wisdom in the active application of her charities, as to render them both efficient and extensive. She seldom was seen in these works of beneficence; her object was to do good: the grat.i.tude of those on whom she bestowed benefits was no part of her motive, or even of her calculation. What she did she did unto G.o.d, and in obedience to his commands; her faith and hope were in G.o.d.

She contributed largely to the public inst.i.tutions established at Edinburgh in her day. Of one or two of the most useful she was the first to suggest the idea, always accompanying her recommendation with a handsome donation to encourage the work.

The venerable Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge and Piety shared largely her patronage; and at her death she bequeathed them five thousand pounds.

She indulged the hope of seeing a union of exertion, among all Christian denominations, for sending the gospel to the heathen. How delighted would she have been with the missionary societies of London and elsewhere, had her life been spared to behold their extensive operations.

She sold her estate of Barnton that she might apply the money to a more disinterested object than her personal accommodation, and that her fortune might be expended with her life, "I recollect here," said Saurin in one of his sermons, "an epitaph said to be engraven on the tomb of Atolus of Rheims: _He exported his fortune before him into heaven by his charities--he Has gone thither to enjoy it_."

This might be truly said of Lady Glenorchy. In her manner she discovered great dignity of character tempered with the meekness and benevolence of the gospel. Her family was arranged with much economy, and a strict regard to moral and religious habits. She usually supported some promising and pious young minister as her chaplain, which served him as an introduction to respectability in the church.

With very few exceptions, all those who entered her family as servants were in process of time brought under religious impressions. So far it pleased the Lord to honor her pious endeavors to render her family one of the dwellings of the G.o.d of Jacob.

Mrs. Graham had the honor of attending the death-bed, and of closing the eyes of this distinguished child of G.o.d. It had been Lady Glenorchy's express desire that Mrs. Graham should be sent for, if within twenty miles of her, when such attendance should be necessary.

The following letter to a daughter, two months later, gives us another ill.u.s.tration of the self-denial and anxiety for the salvation of the soul, with which Mrs. Graham personally ministered to the needy and the suffering, and how skilfully she improved these scenes for the benefit of others.

"EDINBURGH, September, 1786.

"MY DEAR DAUGHTER--Such a scene as I have been witness to!--poor M. B---- is gone to her last abode; her state is fixed for ever. I attended her sick-bed for eight successive days and nights, except perhaps for an hour that I lay down in the same room. I held by life to the very last, because I feared she was not in a fit state to die.

"She took every medicine that was prescribed for her, which I administered with my own hand; but the time appointed to end her mortal state had arrived, and go she must. She lived four days after the physicians had lost all hope, and I think I never witnessed greater distress. I watched every word with anxious care to find if any breath of prayer was to be heard; but alas, I had no such satisfaction. As she was insensible after the first few days, it was not to be expected she could either think or pray.

"O, why will sinners resist the grace of G.o.d, and spend the precious time given to seek and find it in thoughtless folly? What can they do, on such a bed of distress, who have no G.o.d? Time misspent and gone--opportunities unimproved and gone--calls resisted never to be repeated--death hunting the soul through every avenue of life--a dreadful, unknown, unthought of eternity at hand--an awful Judge, and no Advocate secured to plead. A time was when a kind Saviour was expostulating with them: 'Why will you die?' 'Hear, and your soul shall live;' 'Ask, and you shall receive; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you;' 'Look unto me and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth;' 'Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our G.o.d, for he will abundantly pardon;' 'Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters'--blessings purchased by Christ: pardon of sin, reconciliation with G.o.d, a new heart and spirit, all that is necessary for time and eternity--'He that hath no money,' no merit, no good about him, no claim upon any account whatever, 'come, buy and eat, without money and without price;' 'Why spend ye your money,' time, talents, affections, desires, 'for that which is not bread,' and cannot satisfy? 'incline your ear, and come unto me; hear, and your soul shall live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you. Now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation. To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your heart.'

"Such is the language of the dear Redeemer to sinners every day, in his written word, from the pulpit, and in the dispensations of his providence; but O, the madness of sinners, who will not think, who will not attend, will not apply to this Saviour, whose sole errand into this world was to seek and to save sinners, yea, the very chief; but they will not put their souls into his hands, nor give him any service. A time will come, and we are forewarned of it, when this same inviting Saviour will say, 'Because I have called and ye refused, stretched out my hand and no man regarded, I also will laugh at your calamity, and will mock when your fear cometh.'

"Improve this dispensation, my dear child; beg of the Lord to search you and try you, and see that your hopes be well grounded.

"Your affectionate mother,

"I. GRAHAM."

The following to her beloved friend Mrs. Walker, shows the impressions made on the mind of Mrs. Graham by visiting _the place of her nativity and the scene of her struggles with this world's adversity_, when the hand of G.o.d was heavy upon her.

"EDINBURGH, September, 1787.

"MY DEAR MADAM--I have been on a jaunt for nearly three weeks; my school mostly dismissed, the remainder I left with Miss S----.

Goodness and mercy have followed me, and the Lord has taken care of my house also in my absence. Yours was put into my hand on my return, and brought fresh cause of thankfulness; your observation, that we were mutually feeding on the same allowance, continues to hold. I too have been considering the works and doings of the Lord, and many of them have been renewed in my memory by the scenes I have pa.s.sed through.

"I visited the seat of my juvenile years with my dear and only brother. There I recollected the days of my vanity, and the Lord's patience and long-suffering; my repenting, my returning, his pardoning, his blessing; my backslidings, his stripes and chastis.e.m.e.nts, his restoring and recovering, yea, many and many times.

There, too, I found my old acquaintances no more; most of them had finished their course under the sun; some I could still clasp in the arms of faith, as united to the glorious Head, and now singing the song of Moses and the Lamb. From the idea of others, I was obliged to turn away and say, 'The Judge of all the earth shall do right.'

"I recollected a lowly cottage, where lived a pious father, mother, two daughters, and a son; where the voice of prayer seldom ceased, the voice of complaint was seldom heard: not one stone remained upon another; only the bushes which surrounded it, and the ruins of a little garden, the seat of secret communion of each with their G.o.d in turn; for one little earth-floored place was all their house-convenience, and in the winter's storm their little cow-house, built under the same humble roof, was their secret temple. I found three had gone to glory: of the other two I could learn no tidings; but I shall see them one day in very different mansions. I saw others spreading like a green bay-tree, adding field to field, and dwelling alone, servants and dependents excepted.

"I saw my father's cottage, in the day when the Lord pressed him down, and the place where my dear glorified-mother poured out many prayers for me and mine; my own retirement too, after the vanity I had seen of human life, and when tired and sick of it, I sought to end my days in solitude, saying, 'It is enough; here let thy servant depart in peace, and let my children be reared in obscurity.' Then I returned to the town where my husband had practised as a physician, where I had been respected and tasted largely of life's comfort. I saw the house we had lived in, and many tender scenes pa.s.sed; to this same town I had returned a widow, helpless and poor, neglected and forgotten. I saw the house where I had taught my little school, and earned my porridge, potatoes, and salt; when I found myself totally neglected by some who once thought themselves honored by my acquaintance; while others, once s.h.i.+ning in affluence, were now reduced to humble dwellings.

"The Lord has been saying, 'Know and consider all the way by which I have led thee, to prove thee, and try thee, to show thee what was in thy heart, that he might do thee good in thy latter end.' He is now saying, 'Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might;'

'Occupy till I come.' Oh, for a thankful heart, a loving, a zealous heart, a meek and humble heart. Oh, for diligence and steadiness in the path of duty, a due sense of our own weakness and inability, of the Lord's power and all-sufficiency, and firm faith in the same. Give my love to ----, she is the Lord's: her heavenly Father mingles her cup; not one unnecessary bitter drop shall be put into it; bid her trust in the Lord; the time, the set time for deliverance shall come.

I can witness, with many thousands on earth, and an innumerable company in heaven, that he is the best of masters. I have suffered much, yet not one word of all that he has said has failed. I expect to suffer more; but whatever bitter draughts may yet await me, I would not give one drop of my heavenly Father's mixing for oceans of what the world styles felicity.

"I. GRAHAM."

Under another date she adds:

"When we trace the tenderness of our Daysman's conduct through the whole of his tabernacling here below, and add to this the many gracious words which he spoke, and to these again what were spoken by the disciples by his authority, can we refuse to cast all our burdens on him, and to trust him with ourselves and them? You know how sweet it is, in the time of tumultuous distress, when the spirit is overwhelmed, when G.o.d's mercy seems clean gone for ever, and his promise to fail, how sweet to get even a lean upon the Saviour; but when he, as he does at times, takes the soul out of itself, and away from forebodings, reasonings, and suppositions, to his own divine attributes, and gives it a believing view of its interest in them all, in his wisdom as unerring, his power as almighty, his goodness as boundless, his faithfulness unchanging; when we add to these his humanity, and consider that our High-priest was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin, and that he has a feeling for our infirmities; when we find him listening to every pet.i.tion--a widowed mother for her son--the centurion for his servant--weeping with two sisters over a brother's grave--embracing and blessing the little children whom mothers, like you and me, pressed through the crowd, in spite of the reprehensions of disciples, to present to him--accepting the effusions of Magdalene's penitent heart with tender consolation, O how near does this bring the Divinity to us, and how sweetly may we confide in such tenderness. Oh my friend, He rests in his love. Let us rest in our confidence. All shall be well."

When Dr. Witherspoon visited Scotland in the year 1785, he had frequent conversations with Mrs. Graham on the subject of her removal to America. She gave him at this time some reason to calculate on her going thither as soon as her children should have completed the course of education she had proposed for them. She had entertained a strong partiality for America ever since her former residence there, and had indulged a secret expectation of returning. It was her opinion, and that of many pious people, that America was the country where the church of Christ would preeminently flourish. She was therefore desirous to leave her offspring there.

After some correspondence with Dr. Witherspoon, and consultation with pious friends, her plan received the approbation of the latter; and having had an invitation from many respectable characters in the city of New York, with a.s.surances of patronage and support, she arranged her affairs for quitting Edinburgh. The Algerines being then at war with the United States, her friends insisted on her chartering a small British vessel to carry herself and family to the port of New York. This increased her expenses; but Providence, in faithfulness and mercy, sent her at this time a remittance from Dr. Henderson, the young friend of Dr. Graham, who succeeded him as surgeon of the regiment; and a legacy of two hundred pounds bequeathed her by Lady Glenorchy, as a mark of her regard, was now of great use to her.

Thus in the month of July, 1789, Mrs. Graham once more prepared _to go into a land which the Lord seemed to tell her of_.

The two following extracts from her private journal, indicate the state of her mind and heart previous to leaving Edinburgh.

"EDINBURGH, March, 1789.