The Power of Faith Part 8

"JANUARY 3, 1796.

"'Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say, rejoice. Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.'

Philippians 4:4-7.

"'Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto G.o.d. And the peace of G.o.d, which pa.s.seth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds, through Christ Jesus.'

"Christ Jesus! what does not this name comprehend? He is mine, and all is mine. I do rejoice in the Lord, yea, more or less, I rejoice always. This heart of mine is sensible to every human affliction; my tears flow often and fast: I weep for myself, and still more for others; but in these very moments of heart-wringing bitterness, there is a secret joy that Jesus is near; that he sees, knows, and pities. He is Jehovah as well as Jesus, and could have prevented the affliction under which I groan; but for my good, and the good of those near and dear to me, he suffered it, or prepared it. The good of his people is connected with his glory; they cannot be separated: therefore, Father, glorify thy name; I rejoice, and will rejoice. The Lord can remove, and will remove the affliction the moment it has answered the gracious purpose for which it was sent. I would not wish it one moment sooner. While it lies heavy, he is my almighty friend, my rest, my staff of support.

"'In the time of trouble, he shall hide me in his pavilion; in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock." Psalm 27:5.

"'The Lord is my strength and my s.h.i.+eld; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped, therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; with my song I will praise him,' and in his strength and by his grace, let my 'moderation be known unto all men.' My Lord is at hand--at hand to support, at hand to overrule, at hand to deliver. Therefore I rejoice always.

"Blessed be G.o.d for the heart-easing, heart-soothing privilege of casting all my cares upon him, and for the blessed a.s.surance that he careth for me and mine: that he allows, invites, yea, commands me to be careful for nothing, but in all things, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, to let my requests be made known unto him, who is man, and touched with the feeling of our infirmities--Jesus wept--and G.o.d, the almighty G.o.d, to support, overrule, deliver. Therefore my heart rejoiceth always."

"MAY 16, 1796.

"'If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments, if they break my statutes and keep not my commandments, then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes: nevertheless, my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail; my covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.' Psalm 89: 30. Amen; blessed promise. Oh, it is a well-ordered covenant, and it is sure. Of all the provisions of the covenant, this has been to my soul among the most comfortable. Thanks be to G.o.d for the discipline of the covenant; often has it been administered: thou knowest, and I know in part, how necessarily, although I shall not know nor understand all, until that blessed rod shall have perfected its correction, and shall never more be lifted up.

"Many ups and downs has thy servant experienced in this vale of tears; many tears have watered these now aged cheeks; in a variety of ways hast thou stricken, and at times stripe has followed stripe, but mercy and love accompanied every one of them. I bless thee, Oh, I praise thee, that I have seldom received a stripe but I had with it a token of love. Sin was imbittered, a Saviour endeared, and grace given to kiss the rod, and cleave to him that had appointed it. And now I can read in legible characters where, in many instances, thy check met my wandering steps, stopt me short of huge precipices, and preserved me from destroying even my worldly comfort. In some instances--I thank thee they have not been many--thou hast been pleased to let me alone, to let me pursue my own way, ways so wise in my own eyes that I have either not sought counsel at all, or sought it as Balaam did, with my heart set on my own will.

"In some cases thou hast let me eat of the fruit of my own doings, and let me weary myself in my own way, until I found it not only vanity and vexation of spirit, but sometimes a labyrinth from which I could find no escape: then did I cry unto the Lord; then did I remember my backslidings; then did I seek unto the cleansing fountain and to the appointed Mediator, the maker up of the breach: then did I experience afresh the Lord's power to save.

"In how many instances has he given a sudden turn to providences, which have been made means of my deliverance; not only so, but brought good out of my evil, so that I have been made to wonder, and to say,'

Surely this is the finger of G.o.d.'

"I destroy myself, but in thee is my help found. O let these wanderings end; fix it deep on my mind, that in the Lord only have I wisdom as well as strength: that 'it is not in man that walketh, to direct his steps.' When shall I learn to live simply on Christ, by the light of his pure unerring word, and the Spirit coinciding; and have done with these carnal reasonings, the wisdom of men. 'Search me, O Lord, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.' Amen."

"MAY 28, 1796.

"This is the anniversary of my dear Jessie's birth, no more to call us together here; but I yet remember it as a day in which our G.o.d Was merciful to me, and made me the mother of an heir of salvation. I bless, I praise my covenant G.o.d, who enabled me to dedicate her to him before she was born, and to ask only one thing for her as for myself, even an interest in his great salvation, leaving it to him to order the means, time, and manner, as of her natural birth and ripening age, so of her spiritual birth and ripening for glory; he accepted the charge, and he has finished the work, to his own glory, to her eternal happiness, and my joy and comfort. I have witnessed remaining corruption fighting hard against her, and bringing her again and again into captivity to the law of sin and death warring against her. I have seen the rod of G.o.d lie heavy upon her, according to the tenor of the covenant, when she forsook his laws and went astray: when she walked not in his judgments, but wandered from his way, he visited her faults with rods and her sins with chastis.e.m.e.nts, but his loving-kindness he never took from her, though he often hid it, nor altered the word which he had spoken, that he would never leave her, never forsake her; that in due time he would deliver her from all her enemies. I perceived her desires to be delivered from the world and the body, and taken home to the bosom of her G.o.d, since that appeared at times the only way she could be delivered from sin. I heard her lament her unfruitfulness, her unsteadiness: I heard her exclaim, 'Oh, what a sinner, what a great sinner;' and, 'Oh, what a Saviour; O the goodness of G.o.d in hedging me in, and saving me from myself; his covenant stands fast, it is established, it is sure.' I witnessed a G.o.d pardoning sin, yet taking vengeance on inventions. I witnessed the sinner, after being sixteen years in the school of Christ, taught by his ministers, and most effectually by his rod, taking shelter in 'the city of refuge,' in the atonement of G.o.d's providing, and in 'a surety righteousness,' and finis.h.i.+ng her struggles with, 'All is well.' My heart echoed, and does echo, and will to all eternity, 'All is well.'

Glory to G.o.d; sing, not unto her, not unto me, not unto any creature, but 'to G.o.d be the glory,' that she is now delivered from 'a body of sin and death, and made meet to be a partaker with the saints in light.' HALLELUJAH."

"JUNE, 1796.

"'I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord.' Psalm 122.

"'The house of the Lord, whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord,' to seek his face, to learn his will, to taste his love, to behold his' glory, to enjoy G.o.d as their own G.o.d and reconciled Father.

"Lord, let my heart be warmed more towards thy house; I have sought and found thee in thy sanctuary, read thy providences, and been taught thy will; I have tasted thy love and beheld thy glory; I have enjoyed thy presence as my own reconciled Father in Christ Jesus; I have been satisfied with thy goodness, as with marrow and fatness; and yet how cold and languid at times, how little desire to return, how small my expectations, how wandering my imagination. How do I sit before thee as thy people, and my heart with the fool's eyes at the ends of the earth. Lord, I should blush and be ashamed were a fellow-mortal to see my heart at times. I may hide my eyes from viewing vanity, but the evil lies within. O Lord, thou knowest the cause. After all I have heard, seen, tasted, and handled of the word of life, I am still of myself an empty vessel, unable to speak a good word, or think a good thought. Great are thy tender mercies, O Lord.

'Quicken me according to thy word; turn thou away my eyes from beholding vanity, and quicken me in thy way: then shall I run in the way of thy commandments when thou hast enlarged my heart.'

"The house of G.o.d; the owner, the builder, and maker is G.o.d, and it is his peculiar treasure. Christ is the foundation and chief corner-stone, and his house are we, built upon him, cemented together, a spiritual building; the foundation cannot fail, the corner-stone can never give way; neither can we fall to pieces, or be separated from him.

"The house of G.o.d; 'Jerusalem, Zion, the rest of G.o.d, where he delights to dwell,' where he will for ever stay; the house of G.o.d, the church, yea, the body of Christ: Christ the head, his people the church, his members whose life is in him, and derived from him; and because he lives we shall live also. Lord, enlarge my understanding to comprehend more and more of the height and depth, length and breadth of the love of Christ, which pa.s.seth all understanding. Open my eyes to behold wondrous things in thy law and gospel. I am as yet but a babe; glory to G.o.d that I am what I am, a babe in Christ. I shall be nourished with life and strength from my divine Head; educated and nurtured by the blessings of the new covenant. I shall arrive at the perfection of stature appointed, and stand in my lot at the latter day. Amen."

"AUGUST 4, 1796.

"A day to be remembered. Rose at four, not to mourn--no, but to repeat my grateful thanks to my covenant G.o.d for the work he finished this day last year, in delivering my weak, feeble, tossed, and tried Jessie from a body of sin and death, and giving her 'the victory through Jesus Christ, who loved her and gave himself for her.' To thee she was dedicated ere she saw the light; to thee a thousand times I repeated the dedication, begging that thou mightest bring her within the bond of thy covenant; this was the sum and substance of all my askings for her. I witnessed the time of her second birth, saw the tears of conviction and remorse. I witnessed thy loosing her bonds, and tuning her heart and tongue to praise redeeming love. I witnessed the teaching of thy Spirit, and the enlightening of her eyes, and the taste thou gavest her of thy salvation; I thought her mountain stood strong, and she would not be easily moved; but who can tell the deceitfulness of the human heart? Too soon did we all turn aside like a deceitful bow, forsook the fountain of living waters, and hewed out broken cisterns that could hold no water. Glory to G.o.d for the discipline of the covenant, that he did not cast us off, but chastened and corrected. He repeated the discipline stripe upon stripe: I stood by and saw it, and though my heart melted at times, I said, 'She is in her Father's hand, let him do his pleasure.'

"I too was unfaithful to her, thou knowest, and often entered into the same vanity of mind, which stifled the love of G.o.d in our hearts, instead of guarding her and warning her; still, still the Shepherd of Israel followed after both, and with the precious rod restored both, time after time, till it pleased thee to finish her warfare, and deliver her from both body and sin. Lord, I thank thee for all the circ.u.mstances, for the privilege of attending her in her warfare, for the cheerfulness of her spirits, for the rich support we all experienced, for the view we all had of thy faithfulness and fatherly dealing, and for her last words, 'All is well.' O yes, every thing thou doest is well, and this was peculiarly well. I resigned her to thee with joy and thankfulness, and I still acquiesce. Her thou hast taken, me thou hast left, to be yet exercised with further discipline. It is well; thy will be done. O help me to profit by every pang. Let sin be mortified and my soul be purified; enlarge my heart to run the ways of thy commandments. Now may I lay aside every weight, and that vanity of mind which doth so easily beset me, and hath been the secret spring of much backsliding both to myself and to my children. Lord, destroy it.. O let me now live to G.o.d, closely and consistently; down with my will, with self in every form. O purify my motives, and let my whole heart, soul, body, substance, and influence in the world be devoted to thee. Empty me of every thing that is my own, and let 'Christ live in me the hope of glory,' and let the glory of thy workmans.h.i.+p in my soul redound to thee, and thee alone. Amen."

"AUGUST 13, 1796.

"'As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him, rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.' Colossians 2:6.

"O Lord, this is what I pant after. I would fain have done with wandering, Lord, thou knowest, for the work is thine. I have received the Lord Jesus as thy gift to a lost world, as thy gift to me an individual of that world, as having made peace by the blood of the cross. I account it a faithful saying, worthy of all acceptation, that 'Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief,' I have received thee as the Lord my righteousness, crediting thy own word, that 'Christ is the end of the law for righteousness,' and that 'there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.' I have received thee as 'the covenant given of the people.' In all the relations by which thou art held out to me in this Bible, so far as I know or understand, I have received thee. I have no hope in myself, no trust in myself, nor any views of communication from G.o.d of any kind, but through the one 'mediator between G.o.d and man, the man Christ Jesus.'

"O my G.o.d, what is my life, what is my happiness but a continual receiving? Thou art 'the bread of life' that must keep alive the living principle in my soul. In thee 'dwelleth all the fulness of the G.o.dhead bodily.' Thy people are complete in thee; thou art their head, they are thy body, and by joints and bands have nourishment ministered to them, and are knit together, and increase with the increase of G.o.d.

"This, O this is what my soul pants after, closer and more intimate union and communion. I would be transformed into thine image; I would be thy temple; I would have thee live in me, walk in me, make me one with thee; I would be delivered from self-will, self-wisdom, self-seeking; I would be delivered from that philosophy and vain deceit which spoils souls and leads them off from their head: then, and not till then, shall I cease to wander, shall 'run and not be weary, walk and not faint.' Then shall 'I run in the way of thy commandments,' and no longer turn aside to crooked ways. Then shall I eat and drink, work and recreate, all to thy glory. Lord, send thy Spirit into my heart, that he may continually take of the things of Christ and show them unto me; that I may grow and be no longer a babe, but arrive at the fulness of stature in Christ Jesus, and more steadily, and more purely, and more zealously, and O, more humbly live to G.o.d, and glorify him in the world. Amen."

The following extracts of letters to her friend Mrs. Walker, show how ardently the true missionary spirit burned in the heart of Mrs.

Graham, and how efficiently it was exemplified, not only in her pecuniary donations, but her active and self-denying efforts to diffuse information and enlist others in so worthy a cause. The efforts alluded to in the first extract evidently gave rise to the event recorded in the second, _the formation of the first Missionary Society in New York._ It is delightful also to notice her attachment to Christians of other denominations, and the grat.i.tude with which she remembered kindness received by herself when Providence had cast her lot on what was truly missionary ground.

"Do you remember how much I used to say about our dear Methodist Society in Antigua? and the three holy, harmless, zealous Moravian brethren? and how the preachers gave each other the right hand of fellows.h.i.+p, forgetting their differences, in that land of open hostilities, on the kingdom of their common Lord? Thither the Lord brought me from a land of entire barrenness, where, as far as I know, a gospel sermon was never preached. Here I was brought into great affliction, and to pa.s.s through the severest trial that I ever experienced before or since.

"'The Lord brought me into this fold, a poor straggling lamb, who had for five years herded among the goats; and little difference was there between them and me, except that my soul longed after green pastures and rejoiced to hear the shepherd's voice, and when I heard it I knew it, though from one who did not belong to my original fold; these good people nourished me with tenderness, bore with patience my carnality. When my dear husband was taken ill, they wrestled for him in prayer; Mr. Gilbert was every day with him; the Lord heard and gave a joyful parting; yes, joyful, never did I experience such joy; then they sympathized with and soothed the widowed heart, fed her with promises, and in a measure established her: thus they wrought with G.o.d in calling in one, and restoring another; never, never shall I forget the labors of love of that dear little society.

"How many such stragglers as I may be wandering in both East and West Indies, and may be restored by these precious missionaries. I owe them, of my labors, more than others. I send you a bill for _fifty pounds._ I have received eighteen copies of the Missionary Magazine, as far as No. 9. I have got subscribers for them all, who will continue; pay these, and send me what more numbers have been published by the return of the Edinburgh packet, also eighteen complete sets from the beginning. I hope to be successful in disposing of them also. I suppose the sermons go to the same fund; send me a hundred sermons, I will see to get them disposed of; send them single, not bound, and of the best; perhaps they may pave the way for more to follow; every little helps; drops make up the ocean. We cannot yet produce anything; we are gathering intelligence, and endeavoring to collect money; but I grudge that what we can spare should be idle in the meantime; the cause is one; pay the magazines at once, and the sermons if you have enough of my money. I hope to remit again in September. I have a great wish to have a finger in your pie in some way; if I must not subscribe past our own society, I may sell books for yours.

"Ever, my dear friend, yours,

"I. GRAHAM."

To the same.

"1796-7.

"I thank my friend for her letter. I rejoice with you, and bless the widow's G.o.d. He has indeed been so to us, to the full amount of the promise. I have now much to sing of, little to complain of; my dear girls and Mr. B---- go forward steadily, having laid aside the weights of amus.e.m.e.nts and gayety, and seem determined to follow the Lord fully through good and through evil report. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. We have a full school, and a very comfortable set of girls. The Lord has delivered from all heavy burthens.

"Last week a considerable number of ministers and lay Christians met for the third time, and established a society for sending missionaries among the Indians, and also among the poor scattered settlers on the frontiers. A sermon was preached in the evening in one of the Dutch churches, 'The liberal deviseth liberal things,' etc., after which an address was read by the Secretary--our dear Mr.

Mason--which, when printed, I will send you.

"The society is to keep up a correspondence with your and the other societies. If they can effect anything themselves, apart here in America, well; if not, they will throw their subscriptions into the common funds and get help from you. This view is very pleasant to us.

There is great need of itinerant preachers in our back settlements; they are scattered, and no churches of any kind; even in some thick settled counties they will not pay a minister. These are 'the highways and hedges;' O that the Lord may compel them to come in.

"I. GRAHAM."