Chapter IV

IN the spring of 1869 we moved up from Millville, intending to make our home in Philadelphia, but going for the summer months to a little cottage which “Grandpa Whitall” had built for his daughters on the lawn of “The Cedars,” his countryplace near Haddonfield, New Jersey. As Frank’s health seemed to suffer somewhat from the close confinement to business, he gave up his position in the counting-room shortly after our removal, and took a few weeks for country rest and rambling. This little cottage was a happy summer home for our dear boy during the remainder of his short life. His loving grandpa and grandma Whitall delighted to gather around them in the summer all their children and grandchildren, and it made a happy, merry party. Frank was the oldest of twenty grandchildren, and the whole flock were often all together at “The Cedars,” and all, from the oldest to the youngest, thought it was about the happiest place in all the world. There were boating, and driving, and riding, and swimming for the older ones; and trees to climb, and brooks to paddle in, for the younger ones, with a donkey to take them on their longer expeditions. The four older grandchildren, Frank and

Whitall, Minnie and Bessie, formed a very congenial and fun-loving quartette, and kept us all alive with their endless expeditions and pleasant adventures. These summer reunions were eagerly anticipated and joyfully remembered from year to year, and made our dear children very happy. And yet through all the light-heartedness and youthful gaiety, our boy did not forget the underlying secret of a heart at peace with God, which so colored and brightened his life. Writing to one of his cousins a year before his death, in reference to the summer reunion, he says:

*’And what a responsible position we two hold among our cousins. Just think, we are the only ones who profess to be wholly given up to Christ, and how we shall have to hold up the standard of holiness, and show them that our life is a truly happy one. Do let

us pray ever so earnestly for and. If they

could only be made real hearty Christians, what splendid times we ‘d have this summer. For after all I don’t know of any subject I am so much interested in as Christ.”

Thus beautifully did the gospel of joy and peace, which he had heard and believed, bear its legitimate fruit in Frank’s heart, making it natural for him to love communion on this subject better than he loved anything else. And the blessed results in his daily life and walk, among the mirthful group of grandchildren at “The Cedars,” were such as to win from every one, whether old or young, the same testimony that “Frank never did anything wrong.” His cousin

VV used to call him sometimes the *’ model

grandchild,” and we would all smile at the name,

/?itat. 14.] THE RECORD OF A HAPPY LIFE. 47

But it was indeed true, and Frank’s uncles and aunts all feel that, in losing him, their children have lost one who would have been a safe and blessed example to them always. I am glad we did not wait until after his death to know how good he was, and that he himself had the pleasure of hearing from the lips of those who loved him, over and over, what a joy and a comfort he was to all of us. How my heart used to thrill with pride and delight when his grandpa Whitall would say to him sometimes at the close of a happy day at ‘’The Cedars”: ‘’Franky dear, when I die, I want thee to remember that thy grandpa never had any fault to find with thee for anything.”

Dear grandpa little thought at such times that our strong, healthy, manly boy would be the first to be called home, in the very bloom of his youth, and that the summons would come to him in the midst of one of these happy summers at “The Cedars.” It was very sweet to us all, however, that our kind Heavenly Father so arranged it as to let this lovely spot, where Frank had been so happy, be the scene of his last brief illness, and his sudden translation into the far happier and eternally blessed home awaiting him in the better world. If Frank could have chosen himself, I think he would have chosen this. And for the rest of us, we realize that a tie tenderer than ever binds us to the peaceful seclusion of this sweet summer retreat.

During part of the summer of 1869, Frank was at West town boarding-school, having taken a sudden faaicy that he would enjoy a few months that summei at a boarding-school. And as usual, we had so much confidence in his principles and his judgment, that we allowed him to follow out his own plans in reference to it. He seemed for a little while to be quite in perplexity as to his decision, but he told us afterward that he asked the Lord to guide his judgment, and that he believed he had decided according to the will of God.

He remained at West town a few months, and then, on account of weak e)’es, the result of a serious attack of catarrh some few years before, was obliged to return to “The Cedars” in August of 1869, in order to rest before the winter schools should open.

These few months, however, were much enjoyed by him, and none of us regretted that he had gone. His home letters were very frequent, but not especially interesting to any but his parents, being full of little details of his school life, the croquet and base-ball matches, and the amusements generally in and out of school. A few extracts, however, will show that the blessed Holy Spirit was leading him on step by step into the full light, for which he had begun to long at Millville, and that no surroundings could make him forget his Lord. Writing to his father Fourth-mo. loth, he says:

“Dear Father:

“Thy acceptable letter came to hand, and I am very much obliged to thee for it. I have indeed been thrown under extraordinary religious influences, and I feel very thankful for it too. But I am a most weak disciple of ly precious Lord, afraid to do anything to forward His cause for fear of being laughed at. Pray that I may be able to overcome this. It sometimes almost makes me cry, to think of how much Jesus has done for me, and how little I have done in return.

^’... I have joined a croquet club, and expect to have a good deal of fun. I enjoy myself here very much, and don’t regret that I came at all. Please write to me again, for I feel refreshed and I think strengthened by thy letter of to-day. With heaps of love, I am thy affectionate son, and brother in the Lord, Frank W. Smith.

) )

To me he writes, at another time:

‘’ Dear Mother:

*’The box came all right, and I am very much obliged for it, also for the Decalcomanias, which are very funny. I am having an elegant time here, and am not at all sorry I came,

‘* I could resist the temptation no longer, and have joined the first Latin class. We are now reading Virgil; it is elegant fun, almost as nice as reading a story-book. Thee need not be afraid I am studying too much though, for I have plenty of time

‘’Now as to my Christian experience. I think I am growing in grace some, though not much I am afraid; not as much as I would like. But I am trusting, and I think the good Lord will deliver me from this body of sin, and make me wholly His.

“I wish I could see Alice; the dear little duck-adaddles! Cover her with kisses. Tell ’ rogey-pogey,’ I think those drawings she sent me are 5 D beautiful but that I generally try to know my lessons so well that I do not need a fool’s-cap. The boys here have sponge-cake sent them (a hint!).

Dear mother, I will not do anything that will make me go against my conscience, but I see no harm in a little foolish fun, as thee calls it, if I do not think it is wrong.

*’ With lots of love, and 100,000,000 kisses to * Bay ’ and all the children, I am thy loving son,

“Franklin Smith.”

Frank had always been in the habit of taking a little time every morning for reading the Bible and for prayer; but on first going to West town, he wrote to us that he could not keep this up, because he had no private plce to go to for the purpose. I suggested the woods at last, and in one of his letters he says. “I find time every morning before breakfast to read my Bible alone in the woods, and it is a great comfort to me. I think the Lord is keeping me, but I am a very weak child of His. I pray for more strength.”

He had regretted very much this summer, leaving the merry group of grandchildren at “The Cedars,” and especially Minnie, whose home was in Baltimore, and whom he therefore had not many opportunities of seeing. In one of his letters he writes: ‘’The rule of the school is, that those boys who get grade ten for the week, can get out early on Seventh-day. This week there were three, of whom I was one. I went out and sat in the woods, and read poetry, and wrote a piece to Minnie, which I will let thee see.

Thee need not return it, for I have another copy; and thee can put it away, and show it to me some time when I am an old man, and I will laugh at it.” This piece was in imitation of Longfellow’s Hiawatha, and was as follows:

“Is my Minnehaha lonely?
Did her Hiawatha leave her?
Well, her Hiawatha ’s sorry,
Sorry that he cannot see her.
See his lovely Minnehaha.
And this summer at the Cedars,
Will she think of Hiawatha,
While his light canoe she paddles
On the shining big fresh water?
He has gone to fight the white men
In the land of the Dacotahs;
And all through the days of summer
Will he fight them hardly, hardly;
And when days are growing hazy,
And the leaves from trees are falling.
Will he come back to his wigwam.
In the wild dark woods of Westtown,
I am writing this unto thee.
Gayly near me sings the robin,
And all nature that surrounds me
Is as green and fresh as can be:
But my thoughts are not at Westtown,
Are not with my comrades round me.
For I ‘ra thinking of Ov/anee,
And of thee, my Minnehaha.
And I ‘m lonely, lonely, lonely.
In the land of the Dacotahs;
There is something that is wanting,
That I may be fully happy,
*Tis thy presence, Minnehaha!

Hiawatha.**

After all, however, Frank’s weak eyes forced him to return home before the falling of the leaves, and he had a good share of the summer’s pleasures with Minnie, and all the grandchildren at the dear old “Cedars.”

The ensuing autumn we moved to Philadelphia, and Frank spent the winter at home attending an academy at Broad and Market Streets, preparing himself to enter college the next fall. We have no records left of this winter. It was a busy one for our son, as his year’s intermission had thrown him somewhat back in his studies j but he felt that his discipline and training in the counting-room had been very valuable to him, and that he came back to his books with a mind greatly strengthened and matured.

Frank’s father was away from home on business a large part of this winter, and his letters to his son were an invaluable part of the influences by which the Lord surrounded this lamb of the flock, who was to be brought so early in his young life into the ripe experience of maturity. The development of his Christian character was not left to the chance influences for good which might, from time to time, surround him. But continually and prayerfully we sought to set before him the only legitimate results of Christian faith, and lovingly and constantly were these pressed upon him. How fully our boy responded to these efforts, and how entirely he satisfied every aspiration we had for him, will be seen as his story goes on.

His father, in writing to him from New Orleans during this winter, says:

*’My Precious Son:

‘^ I know not what word to use to express the gushing love I feel for thee as I take my pen; and although the end of three of the hardest days’ works I ever did is not just the time to say all that I want to say, I will not wait.

‘*I thank thee, my darling son, for thy full confidence, which I value. I can only pray for thee, dear boy, and entreat thee to walk in the only easy path; that oi faith-full-nQss. And for this let me give thee a secret of my life, which is this: I find that the first moment the Holy Spirit points out anything to be done, that moment is the easy one to do it in. The next moment will find it harder. A third may lead to disobedience. Act easily, because at once.

^’ Dear Frank, thee is young, in full health, and in prosperous circumstances, — few are so blessed. Thy Heavenly Father so loves His own glory in thy life, and thy own highest happiness, that He cannot suffer thee to take thy rest in the world. I believe that He now calls to thee ‘Give me thy heart! ‘Thy whole heart, with all its hopes and joys. It would be so lovely to see thee, with all bright around thee, yield all in a full consecration to Him who bought thee. But if thy heart refuses, what would be the highest token of a Father’s love and care? Would it not be to break into pieces thy idols, whatever thee may be setting before thyself apart from Christ, and to bring thee, even though weeping and broken-hearted, to the foot of the cross? How much lovelier to give Him an as yet unbroken spirit, than to wait for the discipline of sorrow to be sent!

Weigh these things, and the Lord give thee understanding. My heart clings to thee as thee can never know. But, dearly as I love thee, my son, I love God’s glory in thee above all; and I love thy highest happiness so much, that sooner would I see thee broken-hearted before the cross, with thy earthly hopes in the dust, but thy heart happy in Jesus, than to see thee in the highest outward prosperity, thy heart’s evil desires granted, but leanness in thy soul!

*’Thy loving, praying, sy?nj)afhtztng ^2iiltr,

“Robert Pearsall Smith.”

The longings of his father’s heart here expressed were all in time wonderfully fulfilled, and our son did a little later give the Lord his unbroken spirit; and in the midst of all the brightness of youth and health he yielded himself up in full consecration to Him who had bought him for His own.

But the time was not quite yet. He was to realize yet more fully the vanity of all earthly things, and was to be made to hunger and thirst more deeply for the blessed rest of the life hid with Christ in God.

In September, 1870, he entered Haverford College as a Freshman, full of joyous anticipations of a college life; a happy, good boy, earnestly longing to enter into the fulness of rest and victory, of which he had first heard at Millville, in the year 1867, and for which ever since he had been praying and striving, but not yet having realized it. A few weeks before going, he wrote to one who had also been long seeking the same blessing: “Thee really has that experience thee has sought after for so long, has thee? Do pray that I may have it too. I am longing for it, thee don’t know how much.”

And this longing seemed but to deepen and strengthen as time went on. The various occupations of his student life interested him much, and he entered with all his heart into the College pleasures, greatly enjoying being “rushed” by the Sophomores, and entering vdth hearty zest into the “pillow fights” and the cricket and base-ball matches; but through it all there seemed ever to be a continually increasing hunger and thirst after righteousness, and a growing realization that he could never rest satisfied short of the fulness of the salvation that was to be found in Jesus.

Dear Frank knew himself to be a child of God, and felt great peace in believing that all the guilt of his sins had been atoned for by the death of the Lord Jesus, and their every stain washed away in His precious blood. But he ^“as conscious that the power of sin had not yet been altogether broken in his soul, and that his life was too much passed in an experience that could best be described by Romans vii. 19, 21: “When I would do good, evil is present with me,” “for the good that I would I do not, and the evil that I hate that do I.” He knew there was a better experience in store for the Christian than this. He had seen it in his tutor during the memorable year of 1867 at Millville. He had known of it in many of his father’s workmen. He had heard of it continually from those he loved and honored. Above all, he had been taught to find it in the Bible- He had been long seeking to realize it for himself; and now the blessed Holy Spirit was stirring him up to a longing that would take no denial, and was not to cease until, in the early part of the year 1871, our darling boy learned the secret of a life of faith, and entered upon the blessed highway of holiness, never again to leave it for any lower pathway, until it landed him safe in heaven itself.

In a letter to me, written in November of 1870, which will best show the working of his mind on this subject, he says:

**Once for all I will tell thee freely how I stand at present religiously, — strictly secret, remember. There is nothing I could wish for more than to be sanctified wholly, but I cannot give up my will. If I should give it up, and I have often tried to, I feel that I should have to give up so much that I can’t do it.

For instance, says that a sanctified Christian can

never be jolly again, nor play any more games. Now I have a perfect horror of this. I have an ambition to become the best at out-door games and all that. And it seems as if I could not consent to keep all the rules of this institution. Our class, for instance, expect to “rush” the freshmen next year a good deal. (Thee need not tell any one this, and I am only telling thee on condition that thee won’t stop me fronl doing it.) Now it seems to me that if I made any great profession of sanctification here in the College, the fellows would think it rather inconsistent if I should go right off” and break the strictest rule in the whole catalogue. I attend the Bible class becamje thee and father want me to, and because I think 1 ought to. Last First-day evening the fellows were building bonfires around the house, which of course is positively forbidden. I did not join in because it was First-day, and I am not quite so bad as to break the Sabbath. But if it had not been First-day, nothing could have prevented me. Had it been Seventh - day night, I should have done it; and then the next evening I would have gone up to the Bible class, like the most consistent fellow here. If I should make any particular profession, it would not seem very consistent, would it? That is where I stand, and where I am afraid I am likely to stand, unless I get stirred up most wonderfully. I am often very much frightened at my position, but it seems I cannot change. My prayers at night are cold, heartless forms, more for this world’s good things than for spiritual blessings. I suppose all thee can do is to pray for me, for I know the doctrine of sanctification, and all about it, by heart, so often have I heard it. I know you all say it makes you so much happier, but you did not have it while you were as young as I am.”

In this letter, our dear boy stated exactly the difficulties of a young heart, when the subject of entire dedication is urged upon it, and we realized that to him they were actual difficulties, needing very careful and tender dealing. I replied to him therefore very fully, trying to show him that the path of dedication was meant to be one of joy, and not one of hardness and suffering; and that if he would only begin at the right end of it, all would come out happily.

My reply was as follows:

58 THE RECORD OE A HAPPY LIRE. [/Etat. l6.

“Eleventh-mo. 14th.
*’My Darling Boy:

‘* I am very glad thee writes to me so freely. But I am sorry consecration looks so hard to thee. I know it is natural, and I can sympathize with thy feelings, for I used to feel so myself. But I see plainly where thy mistake is. It is just because thee does not know yiiQ^ joys of God’s salvation, and therefore the duties connected with it appall thee. I wish, my precious boy, that thee would just pray now for one thing, — that God will give thee the joys of His salvation. I will ask this for thee, and thee must ask it for thyself. It is not a long prayer, and thee can easily remember to say it morning and evening, and when once thy soul is filled with joy, all the rest will come right. Thee is looking at the thing now in a very legal way, and making the gospel out to be bondage. Whereas, really and truly it is the greatest liberty; and one of its chief elements is joy. Dear Frank, the gospel is good news, a blessed story to make people happy, not a sentence to condemn them to hard and sad servitude. Thee never can know all about it until thee gets hold of it at the right end, the end beginning with ‘Love, joy, and peace.’ Remember these are the ^rj-/ mentioned in that long list of the fruits of the Spirit. Ask for these before thee begins to look forward to the other things. Don’t be afraid of the dear Lord; He wants to make thee happy, and will not cut thee off from anything but what would harm thee.”

In reference to the mistaken ideas of, I told

Frank that the Bible never taught that we were to be

/Etat. l6.] THE RECORD OF A HAPPY LIFE. 59

taken out of the world by becoming Christians, but only that we were to be kept from the evil in it, that religion was not meant to make us unnatural, nor to turn a boy into an old man. And I assured him that all innocent games and amusements would be just as lawful to him after being consecrated, as before, the only difference being that he could enjoy them with a free conscience and a happy heart.

But as to breaking the rules, I told him it was always unmanly and very foolish, and could win respect from no one; that a law-abiding citizen was always the honored and trusted one, and that the boy who aimed at future positions of confidence must begin, therefore, by being a law-abiding student. And finally I urged him to compare the joys of a consecrated life with the uneasiness and self-reproaches that must necessarily follow a course of disobedience to lawful authority.

It will be seen from our boy’s letter that he was always very honest with himself. And in truth he was so careful never to say more than was strictly true, that we often thought his danger lay in the other direction, and that a more free and unconstrained expression of his religious experience would have been more helpful to himself and to others. This careful honesty, however, now renders doubly valuable every after word of his concerning the wonderful victory he so soon realized over the very difficulties mentioned in this early letter. His confessions of what the Lord did for his soul were alway.s behind rather than beyond the reality.