Father Clark’s sermon did not exceed an hour, but there was singing, praying, and conversation with persons in distress. ‘Squire Redman, who was class-leader, gave a warm and feeling exhortation, prayed two or three times, and finally held a private conversation with our friend Wells, and pronounced him to be “powerfully convicted,” and “not far from the kingdom of God.”
We hope our fastidious, cold-hearted, philosophical readers will not get offended and throw the book aside because good Mrs. Wells had a paroxysm of shouting on this occasion. Those readers, whose emotions were never excited until every fibre of the heart seemed ready to give way for a husband and children, as she was, who she knew by her own sad experience were in the broad road that leads to the gates of eternal death, may retain their cold, calculating fire-side philosophy. But we shall permit this impulsive, warm-hearted woman to shout, and express her thankfulness to heaven in the strongest manner, and to her heart’s content. A little too much heat and moisture are infinitely more fructifying in faith and holy living, than ice-bound cliffs and a region of perpetual frost. She had been praying for more than two years for her “old man and little ones,” as she called them, and now she had evidence that the Lord was at work with them. Under these circumstances it would not do to stop the meeting, and the appointment was given out for that night at ‘Squire Redman’s house, and next day at the stand.
Father Clark, the Wells family, and several others tarried for dinner, and a good opportunity was presented to converse with Mr. Wells. Mrs. Wells and two or three other women turned into the kitchen with mother Redman, and by four o’clock, two or three tables were filled in succession by hungry guests, the men first served, the females next, and then the children. Bountiful were the supplies of meat, chickens, eggs, corn-dodgers, and sweet potatoes, with pickled beets, cucumbers, and divers other condiments; enough to supply a whole settlement, including the dogs.
It would have been the season of winter in a northern climate, but it was then the opening of spring, in the early part of February; the weather was pleasant and not disagreeably warm. After the first table was through, Mr. Clark gave our friend Wells a jog of the elbow, and they walked together into the forest to a retired place. Mrs. Wells saw the movement, tried to partake of the refreshment at the second table, but her appetite failed. She was too deeply affected to speak, and with another female who belonged to the same society, was seen moving pensively in another direction, towards the thick forest. We will not intrude. Her husband, whom, under all the rough exterior of unpolished nature, she truly loved, was in a most critical situation. She had conversed with him, kindly and affectionately, about his eternal interests, when he seemed in a mood to listen; she had told him incidents of her own experience; her agony of distress and the efficacy of Mr. Clark’s prayers on her behalf. He had offered no objection to her joining society, though she knew he disliked the Methodists before she joined, and seldom attended the meetings since the circuit had been established. For the first time within the period of their acquaintance, he was anxious about his soul;--she knew it, felt it, and who will blame her if she and her female companion prayed for him audibly and fervently, while Father Clark had him on his knees in another direction, where no eye but the eye of God was upon them, and no other ear was listening.