ON the following Saturday Elizabeth was to start for Seafield. The evening previous was spent in busy preparations for the journey, and with a light heart she retired for the night. Once again she was not only to have a manifestation of His love, but of His power also.
In the dark hours of the night a rumbling noise was heard under the sward outside the house, and it increased by degrees, until it sounded like mighty peals of thunder vibrating through the air. Then the lowly cottage of which Elizabeth was an inmate was shaken to the foundation, as if the Creator had taken it within His grasp.
Elizabeth awoke, and in the darkness of the night she did not need to be told of the awfulness of her position. Forty feet of the spire of the neighboring church had fallen to the ground. Some of the masonry of the adjoining house was shivered to atoms. Elizabeth did not tremble; but a faint feeling stole over her, which was succeeded by a calmness, for she thought, "My God would not have given me this school, if He were going to destroy me in this earthquake." She felt so sure that the school was of God that the simple faith took all fear, and the Author of it used these thoughts to comfort her.
The next morning all was calm in nature. The inhabitants, as she passed along the street to the railway station, looked awestricken, as if something unearthly had happened, as indeed it had. Many, however, who avowed openly that there was no God, betrayed their fear. They knew Him not as a God of love— yea, even love itself—and fear of the Unseen dwelt in their breast, try how they would to hide it.
Elizabeth, her little one, and a daughter of the good people who had so succored her, started for A., a small town seventy miles off, and twelve miles from her future home. They arrived at the terminus at mid-day. News soon flies in a small place, so one of the Seafield school committee, a well-to-do farmer, who was in the town of A. that day, soon was apprised of the fact that the new schoolmistress had arrived. He met her and made himself known to her, and offered to take her in his own conveyance. The trio were soon on their way this lovely spring day. The terrible earthquake of the preceding night had cast no shadow on that day. The sun was shining brilliantly. On went the travelers, till the lovely ocean appeared, whose mighty waves could be heard dashing against the gigantic rocks of the coast.
Elizabeth was eagerly looking out for the schoolhouse, when, to her surprise, the good man drove her to his own grounds, and at last they stopped outside a pretty wood villa with a verandah and lovely flowers underneath. The good man's wife, a bright-looking person, soon appeared, and the travelers were given a hearty welcome, and a repast such as a farmhouse can provide was soon spread, to which they did ample justice.
They were kept there for the night, and the next morning Elizabeth was taken to her home. She expected to see a small shanty, such as she and Edward had possessed on the mountains, but to her surprise it was a well-built house, standing, together with the school, on seven acres of land covered with verdant grass, except where the garden lay, and these grounds were surrounded by a plantation of gum trees, through which the snow-fed crystal stream was winding.
No words can fully depict Elizabeth's feelings when she entered this home, given as it were direct to her from heaven. It was the God of Israel who had touched the hearts of her benefactors to send her here. She had no home, and He gave her one through them. Thus showing how God can come in for His people's good.
The following Monday morning Elizabeth met her pupils. She soon got to love them and they her; and at the end of one month she was asked to accept the school permanently. Here she lived for a year and a half, spending some of her happiest days. The pure air and sea-breezes soon strengthened her, and she felt that her God had done so much for her she must do something for Him, so she formed a Sunday-class in the schoolroom on Sunday afternoons, and at her own house in the evening for those older, and who had left the day-school. Many had to walk several miles; but gladly did they travel rough roads to hear God's word. Only about once in five weeks did a church minister hold service in the place.
One young girl confessed that she had found the Savior through Elizabeth. She said no interest did she ever take in her Bible before she came. Once this young woman was driving, and her younger sister fell out of the vehicle, through the horse taking fright. The poor girl was several miles from home, and alone by the roadside with her sister's head bleeding profusely. She thought of Elizabeth telling her to pray when in difficulty; so the girl poured out her first real prayer to God, that she might be guided to some house to get relief for her sister. She directly saw in the distance a cottage, to which she hastily drove, and found the woman of the house to be a Christian—a Wesleyan—and she quickly relieved the suffering girl.
Elizabeth's health at last gave way, and she sought medical aid, and was advised to return quickly to her native land, as she was suffering from consumption. She soon prepared to leave this loved spot, and this young girl who had confessed her Savior was asked by others to carry on the Sunday class that Elizabeth had been compelled to give up. May God's rich blessing be upon this young worker at the far ends of the earth. Before Elizabeth left she composed the following lines, which were accepted very heartily by the parents of her pupils:
“Fair Seafield I love to gaze
Upon the panorama of thy lovely landscape;
Thy distant snow-capped hills towering up in splendor
Beneath the canopy of blue.
Thy wide-spread meadows, and flocks of bleating lambs;
And the eastern shores of thy fairy isle,
Fringed with you azure ocean.
I oft behold thy homesteads, dotted here and there,
And filled with many a kindly heart.
Thy village school, where smiling children, too, I meet,
And where on Sunday afternoons,
Their voices mingle, with those of riper years,
In hymns of praise to the great Artist,
Whose pencil, as it were, has sketched so fair a scene,
Where once the scepter of the savage ruled its sway.
Thy sunsets, too, where the sun
In all his bold majestic beauty, bathed in golden light,
Is seen to smile behind the western hills.
The moon, too, with her silver sheen
I love to gaze on,
Rising in all her loveliness into the spangled vault of heaven.
Fairer and grander scenes I might have seen,
Where other snow-capped hills tower 'neath heaven's canopy.
And lovely gorges, made by the glaciers of other years,
And foliage of every hue is there;
Where the crystal stream winds on,
Increasing ever and anon until I hear its distant roar.
But Seafield, where I, a homeless stranger found a home,
And kindly hearts to cheer, I'll ne'er forget thee;
And in the distant ages may thy voices join with mine
In Hallelujahs
To the great Creator, the Savior of mankind,
Whose mighty voice is heard
In the distant roar of thy mighty waves.”