Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission. Daniel C. Eddy
night's deepening shade,
Glory's brightest beams were playing
Bound the happy Christian's head."
In October, 1810, an event occurred which gave direction to the whole life of Harriet Atwood. She became acquainted with Samuel Newell, one of the enthusiastic apostles of missions. He made her familiar with his plans and purposes, and asked her to accompany him as his colaborer and companion. Long had she prayed that she might be a source of good to her fellow-creatures; long had she labored to accomplish something for God and his holy cause; but the idea of leaving mother and friends, home and kindred, and going forth to preach salvation and tell of Jesus in wild and barbarous climes, was new and strange. To the whole matter she gave a careful and prayerful consideration. She divested the great subject as far as possible from all romantic drapery, and looked upon it in its true light. For a while her mind was in a state of perplexing doubt and fear, and the thought of leaving her own land was terrible. While considering the conflict in her mind, we should remember that the cause of missions was in its infancy; that no one had ever gone forth from our shores to preach salvation by grace in heathen countries; that those who were agitating the subject were branded as fanatics, and the cause itself was subject to unjust suspicions and contempt; consequently the subject had an importance and awfulness which it does not now possess. The way has been broken, and all good men acknowledge that the heroism of the missionary woman is grand and sublime. The decision made by Harriet Atwood was different from that made by others in after years, inasmuch as she had no example, no pattern. She realized that the advice of friends, biased as it was by prejudice and affection, could not be relied upon; and, driven to the throne of God, she wrestled there until her course of action was decided and her mind fixed intently upon the great work before her. Her resolution to go to India was assailed on every side. Those to whom she had been accustomed to look for advice and counsel, friends on whose judgment she had relied, shook their heads and gave decided tokens of disapprobation. But the question was finally settled. On one side were the gay world, her young associates, her kind relatives, her own care and comfort. On the other side stood a bleeding Savior and a dying world. To the question, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" she heard the response, "Go work to-day in my vineyard;" and when she looked forth upon the harvest, white for the reaper's hand, she hesitated not to consecrate on the altar of her God her services, her time, her life.
When this decision was once made, she conferred not with flesh and blood. Her reply was given to Mr. Newell in firm, decided language; and up to the hour when her spirit took its flight from earth to heaven, we have no evidence that she had one single regret that she had chosen a life of self-sacrifice. Her language was—
"Through floods and flames, if Jesus lead,
I'll follow where he goes."
Through duties and trials, through floods and flames, she passed, shrinking from no danger and shunning no sacrifice. Conscious of right, she quailed not before the tears of friends and the scorn of foes; but alike in duty and in danger followed the footsteps of her Savior, until her wasting body was decomposed and her spirit taken up to dwell with the just men made perfect.
To a friend in Beverly she writes as follows: "How can I go and leave those who have done so much for me, and who will be so sorry for my loss? How can I leave my mother here while oceans roll between us? How can I go with but little prospect of return? And how can I stay? We are under solemn obligation to labor for God; and I must go to India at any sacrifice. I owe something to my perishing fellow-men; I owe something to my Savior. He wept for men—he shed tears over Jerusalem.
'Did Christ o'er sinners weep?
And shall our cheeks be dry?'"
At this time her letters to Mr. Newell breathe forth the most devoted missionary spirit, and exhibit her firm determination to do her highest duty and discharge her great mission at any sacrifice—at the cost of separation, tears, and death. And required it, think you, no effort to bring her mind into this godlike state? Cost it no toil to discipline the heart to such sore trials? Most certainly it demanded toil and effort; and many a visit to the cross was made, and many a view of the bleeding Savior obtained, ere she could turn her back on home and all that the young heart holds dear in this life, to labor and die far away over the rolling sea.
And we doubt if any other motive can be found so powerful as this to move the Christian heart to obedience. There is an inexpressible efficacy in the cross to bring all the various opposing elements into subjection, and produce order in the place of discord and opposition. With the cross the early disciples went forth, not as the crusaders went, with the sacred symbol on banners, and badges, and weapons, but wearing the spirit of the cross like a garment, having its doctrines engraven on the heart, and inspired and quickened into life by its mysterious energy. It was the cross that induced the early disciples to brave danger and death to spread abroad the new faith. The martyr at the stake, amid the curling flames, was supported by it; the exile from home, banished to rude and savage wilds, loved it; the prisoner in his chains, confined and scourged, tortured and bleeding, turned to it, and found satisfaction for all his wrongs; the laborer for God, amid wild men who had no sympathy for his vocation, carried the cross, and fainted not in his anxious toil.
And such was the effect of the cross on the mind of Mrs. Newell. It sent her forth in all the love of womanhood, and sustained her until the close of life, It produced on her the impression that it made upon the dreamer Bunyan, who saw it as he was escaping from the city of destruction. He came to it with a heavy heart and a burdened soul; but as he saw it the burden fell and rolled into the sepulchre, and his load was gone. He gazed with rapture and delight; and the tears burst forth and flowed down his cheeks, and joy and holy satisfaction filled his soul.
Here is the great moving motive, one which is above all others, one that is more effective than all others; and by this our heroine was animated and cheered in her missionary work.
Up to the time of her departure for India, the mind of Miss Atwood continued to be exercised with contending feelings. At one time the sacrifice, the toil, the labor, and self-denial of a missionary life would rise up before her. She would feel how great the trial must be to leave all the endeared scenes of youth and childhood, and go forth to toil, and perhaps die, among strangers in a strange land. Dark visions would often flit before her; and she felt how terrible it must be to sicken and expire on shores where no mother's kind hand could lift her anguished head nor smooth her fevered pillow. But at other times her spirit soared above the toil and sorrow, and dwelt with rapture upon the bliss, of seeing some of the poor, degraded heathen females converted to Christ. The glory of the great enterprise presented itself; and she realized the blessedness of those who leave father and mother, brother and sister, houses and land, for the promotion of the kingdom of Christ. From these various struggles she came forth purified, dead to the world, and alive unto Christ. Any sacrifice she was willing to make, any toil endure. It was her meat and drink to do the will of God and accomplish his work. After a full investigation of all the privations and sacrifices of a missionary life, after a solemn and prayerful estimate of all that was to be left behind and all that would be gained, she formed her opinion and decided to go forth. A feeble woman, just out of childhood, she linked her fate with an unpopular and scorned enterprise, and cast in her lot with the dark-browed daughters of India.
We have seen grand enterprises commenced and carried on; we have seen our fellow-men gathering imperishable laurels; but never before did the world witness so grand a spectacle, with so high an object to be accomplished by mortals, as was given in the departure of Harriet Newell to teach the lessons of Jesus in distant lands. We consider the career of Napoleon a glorious one. We cannot look upon his successful marches and battles, however much we disapprove his course, without something of admiration mingled with our abhorrence. There was a gorgeous glory which gathered around the character of that emperor of blood which hides his errors and dazzles the eyes of the beholder. But the true glory which gathered over that little band of missionaries, as they left the snow-covered, icebound coast of America, to find homes and graves in distant India, far outshines all the glitter of pomp and imperial splendor which ever shed its rays upon the brilliant successes of the monarch of France, the conqueror of Europe.
True, they went forth alone. No weeping church followed them to the water side; no