EXTENDS HER LABORS.
After about a dozen and a quarter years the Arnold place lost the meetings
both of the circuit and of the society.
The changes of business and travel left the place quite one side, and
the meetings had been gradually removed to more central and convenient
locations. Mr. Arnold had been called by the church to hold meetings as an
exhorter, and had sought out some destitute neighborhoods as his chosen
field. It was natural and appropriate for his wife to accompany him.
They were both good singers, and had sung together a third of a century.
They were ready speakers and mighty in prayer, and in the quiet way of lay
workers they went from house to house, and to a family in a place they
presented the great salvation in conversation and psalm, and commended the
people to God in prayer.
It was not long before they collected in congregations; and while the
"licensed" exhorter, who really "preached many things to the people in his
exhortations," always led the meetings, the real exhorter followed with
cutting appeals. This destitute region was thus visited occasionally for
several years, and this couple had the honor of being its successful
pioneers in Christian evangelism. In a central position has long stood a
Methodist Episcopal church, and members of its society, fifty years after
these humble labors, acknowledged them in the hearing of the writer as the
means of their salvation.
Elizabeth was now between fifty and sixty years of age, was no longer the
nimble rider, but somewhat heavy and clumsy; she preferred the carriage
seat to the saddle, but still in her numerous visits to the sick and such
as she could bless by religious calls she continued her old method, as
being more independent. Many wondered at the ease and skill with which a
woman of her age and size would spring on and off and manage her horse.
She would modestly reply, "My dear father taught me how, and I have always
liked it."
She early became a skillful nurse, and was for many years a diligent
visitor of the sick, especially among the poor and the ignorant. Her saddle
horns were hung with budgets of medicinal herbs and little comforts, and
she would find out the sick and suffering, and administer both to their
physical and spiritual wants, and return to her household duties almost
before her family knew she had been gone.
About this time a new field of labor was providentially opened to this
Christian worker. The Presbyterian and Baptist churches in that town began
to employ "evangelists" to hold "revival meetings" of a new order; but when
the people appeared to be thoughtful, and they got them into the "anxious
meetings," they found it almost impossible to get them to praying or
the church to praying for them directly and earnestly, especially the
sisterhood of the Presbyterian church; so the deacons and elders, in their
strait, begged Mrs. Arnold to "come over into Macedonia and help." Much as
she had suffered in her early religious life from predestinarianism, she
never was a bigot, and so she, like Paul, "gathered assuredly" that the
call was of the Lord, and "without gainsaying" went and helped them
publicly and from house to house as best she could. The result was that
during the balance of her active life she was urged into and did much of
this inter-church work in their periodical revivals, and obviously with
good effect.
But, grateful as were these churches for such help, and encouraging to
her heart as the fruit appeared, she ever labored in these Calvinistic
associations under more or less embarrassment. To be at once true to her
principles and true to interdenominational courtesy left her rather a
narrow platform to work upon; but, limited as it was, she would not
transcend it in either direction. When, however, she could find revival
work within reach among her own people she ever gave such calls the
preference; and from their arrival in the new country down to the
retirement of infirm old age, more than a quarter of a century, "Sister
Arnold" was known for many miles around as "an excellent revival laborer."
Several allusions have been made in this narrative to her shouting; but
it should be understood that she was not in the habit of "shouting before
getting out of the swamp." The order of her work was solemn, steady,
earnest, and in mighty faith; but when the struggle was over, the victory
gained, sometimes that solemn countenance would become suddenly luminous
and her shrill shouts would pierce the very heavens. These loud
exultations, however, were indulged in in no meetings but those of her own
people, and grew less frequent as age crept on, giving place to tears of
joy and whispers of praise.