01.03. The Awaking

The Awaking

SHORTLY after their return from France, the family went to reside in P____, near Edinburgh. There, as in Paris, M.’s heart still went out after vanity, and sought its joy in the world.

There was no seeking after God, no wish to have him for her portion. Instead of an approach to Him, there seemed a more resolute departure from him. Her dislike of religion and of religious people seemed to take firmer root. In part, this was occasioned by the inconsistencies of one very dear to her, who, having been aroused to a sense of sin, had turned back to her former ways, or at least was not walking as "becometh the gospel." In after years, this relative thus wrote in reference to that crisis in M.’s life as well as in her own:—"At this time, or shortly before, J. W. through your ministry was brought to Jesus, and, having found the Lord herself, she soon began to desire our salvation. Why I was the one who at this time visited Kelso, and not M____, J.’s peculiar friend, I cannot recollect. But so it was; and I was awakened by the sermon you preached from Isaiah 3:10-11. For a time my distress was great, but, instead of laying down my burden where Christian laid his, at the Cross, I sought relief in the prayers and works of self-righteousness; and my goodness, as may be imagined, proved like the morning cloud and the early dew. I mention this, because I remember, that, on my return home, this false piety of mine was a great stumbling-block to M____, and tended to excite in her mind a dislike of religion, and of those who professed it—chiefly, I think, of you." In spite of this aversion, she still retained her love to the early friend alluded to in the above extract ; and to visit her, she came to Kelso on the 8th of June 1841.

She comes, however, resolved to keep aloof from all religious influences, and to steel herself against every serious impression. She determines beforehand that she will have nothing to do with those who had been the means of so strangely altering the friend of her youth. How much of hostility, and how much of fear, there may be in this purpose, we cannot say. Both unite in leading to its formation. Curiously mingled are the feelings with which she comes. She loves her friend, yet she hates her piety. She has delight in visiting her, yet she dislikes coming within the reach of her religion. She fortifies herself against serious impressions, as if afraid of their contagiousness. She clings to the world, as if dreading that an attempt will be made to tear it from her. On the evening of her arrival, her friend, on parting with her for the night, after mutual assurances of friendship, expressed her hope that their friendship might be "for eternity." This was the first word of the kind that had, since her arrival, fallen upon her ear, and it seemed to fret and annoy her, though without calling forth any remark in reply.

Thus was she going farther and farther from God, not loving to retain him even in her knowledge. She had come for a season to enjoy the society of one who knew God, but it was not with the design of learning to know this God, or to walk in his ways. She "would have none of Him." If God could have been shut out, she would have shut him out, and denied him access at every avenue. But as she went farther from God, so He, in the sovereignty of his love, drew nearer. She fled, but He pursued.[3] She repelled Him, but he would not be repelled. He laid his hand upon her, and at length, in spite of all resistance, drew her irresistibly to Himself. It needed a strong arm to arrest one so froward, so bent upon fleeing farther and farther from the God who sought her; but the "vessel" was a "chosen" one, and must not be cast away (Acts 9:15; Romans 9:23). This was the crisis. The sinner’s hatred of God and God’s love to the sinner now met, as if seeking, each to quench the other. Which is to prevail? Her visit took place at a time when much prayer was made, specially for those that were "afar off." Although both in her character and circumstances there were many things that seemed to make her case an unlikely and unhopeful one, in so far as religious impressions were concerned, yet she was not the less, but the more, on that account, made the object of special prayer by those who loved her and who had already known the grace of God in truth. Both before she came and afterwards, frequent intercession was sent up in her behalf.

Induced by her friend, though with no willingness, she went to hear an evening sermon in the place which she had resolved to shun. This was on the first Sabbath after her arrival; and though she thus, in compliance with another’s earnest wishes, broke the outward part of her purpose, she made up her mind to keep the inward part only the more steadfastly. The letter of her determination she gave up, only to retain the spirit more truly, by hardening her heart against all solemn thought, and drawing the armour of her worldliness more firmly round her, to ward off every arrow from the bow, every stroke from the sword of the Spirit. But, can man arm himself against God? Can he refuse to hear or to feel when God himself is the speaker? The subject of discourse that Sabbath evening (June 13) was the nineteenth question of the Shorter Catechism, respecting "the misery of that estate whereinto man fell." It was one of a series of sermons upon the Catechism which had been proceeding for some months. Each successive statement given in the answer to the question, formed a separate head of discourse, which was summed up with warning to each hearer, yet with a declaration that, wide as was the misery, there was deliverance as wide and full.[4] On leaving church, M____ remarked that that preaching was "too awful for her—she would not go back." Yet her soul was troubled. No distinct impression had been made that night, yet it seemed as if a dark cloud were threatening to overshadow her. The first result was irritation. She was angry at being disturbed; angry at the clouds of the eternal gloom being thus rudely rolled betwixt her and the world. Between anger and alarm, the night passed over, and another day opened on her. On the following day I saw her. But she was reserved in the extreme. As she could not with propriety leave the room where we were, she kept almost entire silence; and though she could not help listening to the conversation, she took no part in it. No effort would draw her into conversation. Yes or no, was the sum of her replies. She seemed bent on carrying out her purpose of shutting up her soul against conviction; and her object was to make the interview as disagreeable as possible, in order that it might not be repeated. This was the first stroke of the Spirit’s hand upon her. Her conscience had, though very indistinctly, been touched. But the work was to be a deep one, and rapid as well as deep, so that stroke followed on stroke, and the crisis came with speed. She was not to be, as many are, the subject of various fitful impressions, going and coming, ruffling the surface, yet never striking down into the depths of the lake below. She was to be thoroughly searched and broken; yet the process was to be much less gradual than it is with many. And in the deep stirrings and convictions that accompanied her awakening, we have the key-note of her future experience. In spite of her irritation at the Word spoken, and her resolution to go no more to hear it, she was persuaded to attend a prayer-meeting on the Monday evening. Whether it was to please her friend, or whether it was because there was an unconscious fascination in the very words that had repelled her, we know not. An unseen hand was leading her, and a will which she felt not, but which was not on that account the less irresistible, was setting aside all her determinations, and bringing her into the position which she was striving to avoid. At this Monday evening meeting she was deeply smitten. In the midst of the address, when the minister was uttering some words of warning, she turned round to one sitting next her and said, half-aloud, in an angry tone, "What does the man mean? "

Terror now took hold of her. It was in vain that she tried to shake off her convictions. On returning home from the meeting, she was evidently disturbed, yet she affected great indifference, and strove to appear unmoved; and, as if afraid that those around might guess at the tumult within, she said, abruptly, when no one was alluding to the matter,— "Don’t suppose that I care anything for that man’s words—I am determined not to mind him." The way in which she spoke made it evident that she was caring most deeply, but that she was angry at herself for caring, and sorely annoyed at the idea that others might got an insight into the state of her feelings. She thus betrayed the anxiety she was so anxious to hide. No remark, however, was made in reply, and the evening closed. But her sleep went from her, and she lay trembling with sore alarm. Sin, and the eternal hell into which sin must plunge the soul, stood before her. Satan, too, as she afterwards told, seemed to lay his hand on her for the purpose of drawing her back, as if alarmed at the prospect of losing his prey. She felt as if he seized her. Then she started, and sat up in bed, trying to keep herself awake, lest, if she slept, she should awake in hell.

Next morning she was restless and very unhappy, still fighting with her fears, and still seeking to conceal alike the struggle and the terror, by pretending total indifference to what she had heard the night before.

Throughout the forenoon she was unsettled and uneasy, going from room to room, without any real object, her countenance, all the while, betraying the misery of her soul. She tried different ways of employing herself, but was unable to fix her attention upon anything. She knew not what to do, such was the fever within; and this moving to and fro was the unconscious expression of an inward grief, for which there was neither concealment nor relief. She then sat down to write, but remained some minutes motionless, her forehead resting on her hand. She then dated her letter, as if to begin. Then she stopped, forgetting what she meant to do, and totally absorbed with her own troubled thoughts, as if listening only to the fitful gusts of that tempest that had risen within. After thus sitting for a little, wrapped in bitter musing, she dashed the pen away from her, exclaiming, with angry bitterness—"It is strange that I cannot now even write to my own mamma!" It seemed as if for the time the spiritual convulsion that was going on within were unfitting her for everything. On being asked what was the matter, the pent-up feeling burst forth, and she exclaimed, "Oh! that man’s words have donefor me!" The secret was thus disclosed. The words which she had heard on the previous evening were ringing in her ears. They had "done" for her. "What were the words that so distressed her? " she was asked. "He asked us how we could go to sleep with sin unforgiven, when we knew not but that we might awake in hell."

"I happened (says her friend, who was with her at the time) to be reading notes of a sermon by Mr. M’Cheyne, from Song of Solomon 2:14. She came to me and asked if I would read it aloud to her, which I did. She listened very eagerly. I then proposed to read God’s Word, and, as the above text had greatly interested her, we read a great part of the Song of Solomon, which seemed sweet to her. When I stopped, she said, ’Read on, it is very beautiful.’ She wept very much, and seemed a little relieved. She began from that time to read her Bible a great deal; but still, for some time, she shewed an unwillingness to disclose her feelings to any one. Two or three times the sentence would escape her lips, ’That man’s words have done for me!’"
In what way his words had "done for her," will be plain enough. The expression, however, is one quite like herself. She was as vivid in expression as in feeling, and often gave vent to her impulses in such abrupt expressions as the above. Many of the kind will be found strewn over her letters, for she invariably, in expressing herself, took the words nearest at hand. Hence the brokenness, yet, at the same time, the vigour and point, which throw such interest into her correspondence. To let out what she felt, and just in the way she felt at the time, was all she ever sought.

One cannot but see what a real thing this awakening was. It was no excitement, no fancy, no flitting cloud of melancholy mysticism, in which so many are finding all the religion they think needful. It was all most genuine. There was nothing indistinct about it in the end, though the first shadow that stood over her might seem vague and undefined. It was the "terrors of the Almighty" that had taken hold of her. It was a sense of sin that broke her down. It was the feeling of her lost estate that shook her frame and robbed her of her rest. In this there could be no imitation, either conscious or unconscious, for she had scarcely heard of such things before. She had read no experience of the kind. She had never seen another passing through such a cloud. Whatever her feelings might be, they were certainly unborrowed. No book nor friend had said to her, "thus and thus you ought to feel." She was not trying to feel or tryingto alarm herself. The impressions awoke within her, as in a moment, while she was thinking of every other thing save of them; the sense of sin laid hold of her, when as yet she had no idea of sin at all. In after years, these deepened and became more intense; but even from the first they were of no superficial, no transient kind. Her feelings, at this time, seem to have been not unlike those which an old minister describes as his, when thus aroused by the Spirit:—"I had a deep impression of the things of God; a natural condition and sin appeared (and I felt it) worse than hell itself; the world and vanities thereof terrible and exceeding dangerous; it was fearful then to have to do with it, or to be rich. I saw its day coming. Scripture expressions were weighty. A Saviour was a big thing in mine eyes. Christ’s agonies were then earnest with me, and I thought that, all my days I was in a dream till now, or like a child in jest; and I thought the world was sleeping. Shame, trouble, and affliction, want and poverty, were sweet and secure. I was wearied of my life; it was bitterness to me, and sorrow did consume me, so that there was a sensible influence on my body, and I looked like a man come from the grave; yet did none know my trouble. The night was sweet, because I had some rest; but the morning was as the shadow of death, because I was to conflict; I would even have been content to have lain still perpetually, my spirits were so over-foughten."

Immediately after this, she went into the country for a few days. There her impressions lost somewhat of their edge, and she tried to throw herself into the world again. "When she returned," says her friend, "I happened to be writing, and my Bible was lying open on the table beside me. When she saw this, her hostile feelings returned, and she said, within herself (as she told me afterwards), ’This is miserable work,’ wishing, at the same time, that she was back to her worldly friends." But her convictions soon returned in all their force, and her anxiety increased. Nor did it again abate. She went back to the world no more— but, after a little delay, straight forward to the Cross, there to deposit all her sins and fears.