AN AUTHENTIC NARRATIVE.
“I AM an aged hemlock. The winds of a hundred winters have whistled through my branches. I am dead at the top,” said a venerable Mohawk chieftain. The ancient Pequot woman, whose brief history is here given, expressed herself in language equally figurative: “I am a withered shrub; I have stood a hundred years; all my leaves are fallen; but water from the river of God still keeps my root alive.” Here was a bright allusion wanting in the speech of the Mohawk, which implied confidence in God. This individual, long known in her neighborhood as the Good Old Ruth, died a few years ago, aged 100 years.
The Pequots, her native tribe, were distinguished for cruelty and hatred of the Christian religion; and she herself, in early life, possessed the same characteristics. In her youth, she resided a while among the Narragansetts, and married one of that tribe, named Pomham, with whom she removed to the Mohegan settlements in the vicinity of New London, Connecticut. They lived together about a dozen years, in a low, irregular manner. Pomham at length died; the sons went to sea, the daughters to service; and at fifty years of age Ruth was left a lonely widow, ignorant of Christ, and with no cheering hope either for this world or the next.
About this period she became a constant attendant upon an aged lady, who was very infirm, but intelligent. This lady often conversed with her on the subject of religion, and two young children connected with the family took great pains to teach her to read and understand the New Testament. Its truths, now for the first time brought home to her understanding, made a deep impression on her soul. She soon began to confess her sins to God, and to cry to Him for mercy. The knowledge that she imbibed from the lips of these children seemed to her, as she afterward said, “sweeter than meat or sleep.” Her situation was one of great confinement, but whenever permission was given her to go out for refreshment or exercise, instead of availing herself of it, she would spend the time with these children, sitting down on a low stool by their side, while they instructed her from the Bible, or other good books—preferring this privilege to the enjoyment of the fresh air, or rambling in the green fields. Thus was she gently led, like a little child, by the instrumentality of little children, to the feet of Christ.
During the last thirty years of her life, she resided with her youngest daughter in a comfortable tenement, where the charitable and the pious often went to see her, and took care that in her old age she should not be without some of the comforts of life. Those who knew her origin and her early history, were surprised at the depth of her Christian experience, and even strangers were often affected to tears to find such a heavenly relish of divine things in one so poor, so ignorant, and so aged.
Her senses were very little impaired at ninety years of age, but she had never been able to read fluently, and a visit from a Christian, or even from a child, who would read to her in one of her two precious books, her Bible and Psalm-book, was a blessing for which she used most devoutly to thank God. For every little article of comfort also that was presented to her, she would first give thanks to God, and then express her gratitude to her earthly benefactor. The smallest of these gifts would instantly carry her mind away to its Author, and lead her to dwell upon his goodness, sometimes with calm delight, and sometimes with deep emotion. “God is good,” she would say, “O how good! The air that comes in at my window, the singing of birds, and all the sounds I hear, tell me that He is good. This fruit that I hold in my hand speaks of His goodness; I see it everywhere; I learn more of it every day. Yes, He is good, and He is my Heavenly Father—that is my exceeding joy.”
She often spoke of the sweet views she had of God, and Christ, and heaven, during the silence of the night—always preferring to sleep alone, that her communion with God might be undisturbed. “It is sweet,” said she, “to be alone in the night season with my Saviour.”
A visitor once wished to ascertain whether her love to the Saviour was truly spiritual, or merely like what we feel for a dear earthly friend. “Ruth,” said she, “do you love the Saviour more” —she could proceed no further before the aged woman raised her shriveled hand from the bed, and exclaimed with great animation, “Better than all the world besides—better than friend or kindred; He is all my hope and all my joy.”
She manifested such confidence in God, and such a happy assurance of Heaven. that faith seemed at times lost in vision. Life had no distressing doubts or cares, neither had death any terrors. “I am in the hands of my Father,” she would say; “God will take care of me—all the days of my appointed time I will wait. But I am not afraid of death. Jesus has been through the valley, and He will go with me. I will lean upon His rod and His staff.”
All who came near her shared in her prayers and exhortations; and after she had lost her eyesight, even the sound of footsteps passing by would make her heart beat quick with desire for the salvation of the wayfaring man and the stranger. To some teachers who had been instrumental in establishing a Sabbath school in the neighborhood, she said, “I thank my God for what you have done. May He bless you for it! I cannot see it, but I can hear the little feet as they patter along on the Sabbath morning, and I rejoice that they are going where they will be taught to love the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Once, on a cold day in winter, the almoners of a charitable society carried her a donation very opportunely. As they opened their stores, her daughter remarked, “Mother will surely think this comes in answer to prayer for when I told her this morning that we had nothing left, she bade me trust in God and take courage, saying, ‘I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seek the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.’” Her mother from her bed overheard this last sentence, and interrupting her, exclaimed, “Oh! He has always fed me, and He always will; none ever trusted in Him and were forsaken.” At another time they arrived on their charitable errand just as Ruth was about to take her dinner. As she was blind, they entered unobserved. Her food consisted of a kind of soup made by boiling bones in corn-water, and it stood before her in a tin basin. After tasting it, she folded her hands and asked, to borrow the language of one of the visitors, “a most heavenly blessing.” Her words were slow, but she expressed herself with great propriety and fervency. The idea she conveyed was, that as God had fed the Israelites with manna from heaven, so she in her poverty had been sustained by the same kind hand; and she prayed that she might always have a thankful heart, and as good and as sweet food as that which was now before her.
In a message to an absent minister, whose prayers and conversation had yielded her great delight and comfort, she said, “Tell that dear man what happiness I have. Last night I had such views of heaven, that I thought I heard the music of the angelic host, and saw the Saviour face to face. I could not believe but I was there, till I called to my child and she answered me. Oh! it was a foretaste of heavenly bliss! Tell him that this is my continual frame of mind.”
Her death was sudden. The last distinct words she uttered were, “Come, my Saviour, come!” A short time previous, she breathed the prayer which may be found upon her grave-stone in New London: “Thou hast been my hope, O Lord God; I have trusted in Thee; now take me to Thyself.”