Chapter 24

see his charge against them, but it is followed, with mercy, not judgment.

"Thus we learn the character of God. Thus we learn his dealings with his people. They are not called to earthly comfort and prosperity. They ever have been, and still are a suffering people; they are all sinners--sin brings suffering, and God overrules suffering, so as to make it profitable to them. Though redeemed by the life and death of Christ, being justified by faith, they have peace with God; yet the Lord has not pleased all at once to qualify them for the purchased possession. They receive a new birth, new life, and are called to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling, with this consolation, that God worketh in them both to will and to do of his good pleasure. This is not their home, here they have no continuing city; they are travelling through the wilderness, to the city and mansions purchased and prepared for them by their Saviour, and must be made holy before they can enter in. They have many corruptions to be mortified, and many errors in their estimation of men and things to be corrected. Their hearts require to be made spiritual, humble, tender, resigned, and loving. 'Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna--that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end.'

"Besides, all suffering is not the immediate punishment of sin in the individual sufferer, nor for his exclusive profit; it is evident from Scripture, there is suffering for the benefit of the body of Christ, _his church_, of which, I think, all have some share. God has wise ends to answer by all the suffering of his creatures, and especially of the members of his body. The apostles rejoiced in this, and so ought we. 'If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him.' Paul says, 'I fill up in my flesh that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ, for his body's sake, which is the church.'

"Now, my dear friend, look at your real situation, as a suffering member of a suffering body. Take a view of the saints of God in history, sacred or profane, and compare your own individual suffering with theirs: I am apt to think that, great as it is, it will not rise to mediocrity. I could expatiate on this subject, from what comes every day within my own knowledge. The Lord is working in this way all around me; but of that another time. In your own case, try for a moment to shut out of view every thing without your own family, what you once were, what you once possessed and enjoyed; also what your friends possess and enjoy at this present time; detach yourself from all. What was yours is gone; what you calculated upon is also gone; set all aside, and consider yourself a sinner saved from destruction by grace; in a state of purgation and preparation for happiness; on a pilgrimage with thousands of others your fellow-saved sinners, through the wilderness, to that inheritance which was purchased for you at _such a price_. Your Saviour is your leader, protector, provider; also your physician, and the physician of the whole body, perfectly acquainted with the constitution, disposition, and temper of every individual. He has made provision for each, all the journey through, and given security that none shall suffer _real_ want.

"Bread and water are promised; nothing beyond these, though in general he gives more; to each he gives a portion in hand, to some for a day, some for a week, some for a year, which they calculate upon with more or less probability: none with certainty. Your portion is--for a year; take a view of those whom you know; one with another, I am inclined to think the Lord has still given you your full share of privilege. Look at the ordinary provision he makes for the ministers of his gospel, most of them with large families; many of those in the country have five hundred dollars, some four hundred, some three hundred, generally ill paid. The Lord puts a blessing in it, he makes it go far; they do what their hands find to do, and get along: so will he do with you, my dear. He will put you upon methods of industry and economy: your one chicken divided into six parts, with a little bit of pork, with the fruit of God's blessing on your industry in the garden, shall both taste sweet and satisfy for the time. Try to be thankful; Moses said of the manna, 'This is the bread which the Lord your God giveth you.' Pray and watch against dwelling on the plentiful tables of others; and when bidden to a feast take your portion, and say, this is from the Lord for the time. Do not let a thought of misery or wretchedness dwell upon your mind. O no, God is good; you shall not want. O, what sweet meals have I and my children made on hot potatoes, nicely boiled and cracked, with salt--not merely content, but they tasted good and savory. There are peculiar pleasures in a life of that kind. You shall yet sing of it.

"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 God 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 God.' 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 God. 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 ungodly 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 God 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 God, let him answer it.' Then he laid his hand on his mouth, confessed himself vile, and became dumb before God; 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 God charge even his angels with folly, shall man, corrupt, self-destroyed man, plead merit before God?

"But, my dear friend, I do not find in all God'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 God'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. God 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 hell, and all that forget God; but he hath set no bounds to his own mercy; in that glorious plan of redemption, by which he substitutes 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 ungodly who believe in Jesus. Short was the time between the thief's petition and the promise of salvation; nay, the petition was the earnest of it. The same was the case with the jailer; I think, too, the publican had the earnest in his petition. Now, instead of laboring to bring my mind to acquiesce in the condemnation of my child, on the supposition of its being for God'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 God has revealed of himself--to the plan of redemption--to the sovereignty of God in the execution of that plan--to his names of grace, 'The Lord, the Lord God, 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 God 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 God may have made him a monument of mercy to the glory of his grace.

"Thus God 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 God may have wrought in it. God 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 God by him,' Now, my dear friend, you have my ideas of our situation; if they be correct, I pray that our compassionate 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 God 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 God, 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 God 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 God that which flesh and blood cannot teach, I desire to esteem him highly for his work's sake. I thank God 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, God 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 God 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.