Chapter I: Preface

This booklet is little more than a compilation. The materials were abundant for a much larger book. Elizabeth's divine _experience_ was so striking, so valuable to the cause of truth, that it has not been essentially abridged. But the _results_ in biography, though well known to all who knew her, have been cut down to the smallest dimensions that would allow that brilliant experience to shine out.

Elizabeth had a lifelong conviction that God required the publication of His remarkable dealings with her, and in her approach to the river of death solemnly enjoined it upon her youngest son and executor. His own convictions also agree with the requirement. Here are obvious reasons:

1. The early history of Methodism has suffered by the dropping out of many striking illustrations of her power. By neglecting to record them permanently while well authenticated, they are now beyond recovery. As this providential work moves on gloriously, making world-wide history, these few preserved incidents of her early triumph become more and more valuable by the lapse of time.

2. Providentially this experience is too rare and too far back in American Methodism to be lost out.

3. The controversy in which this experience was so strong a factor has not become obsolete. The "horrible decrees" have indeed been very generally driven from the pulpit, but not entirely. Our work as polemics will not be finished until they leave the schools and the books, and cease to be pillows for the multitudes who lull themselves to slumber over the notion of "sovereign grace and waiting God's time," and cease to goad despondent souls to despair, with the charge of being "from eternity passed by" as unredeemed "reprobates."

E. ARNOLD.

_Thousand Island Park_, 1893.

CONTENTS

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PART I.

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CHAPTER I.

THAT STRANGE LETTER

CHAPTER II.

ELIZABETH'S ALIENATION FROM THE ANCESTRAL FAITH

CHAPTER III.

THAT ALARMING MESSAGE

CHAPTER IV.

ORDER OBEYED

CHAPTER V.

THE FIERY FURNACE

CHAPTER VI.

GREAT VICTORIES

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PART II.--THE GREAT WOBK OF LIFE.

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CHAPTER I.

ELIZABETH AS MISTRESS OF THE "COTTAGE CHAPEL".

CHAPTER II.

RELIGIOUS PRIVILEGES AND ENJOYMENTS

CHAPTER III.

ELIZABETH AS AN EVANGELISTIC LABORER

CHAPTER IV.

REMOVAL TO A WILDERNESS COUNTRY

CHAPTER V.

VOLNEY, OSWEGO COUNTY, NEW YORK

CHAPTER VI.

HARDSHIPS OF THE NEW COLONY

CHAPTER VII.

THE QUARTERLY MEETINGS

CHAPTER VIII.

EXTENDS HER LABORS

CHAPTER IX.

AS A CAMP MEETING WORKER

CHAPTER X.

"THE CHAMBER ON THE WALL"

CHAPTER XI.

MRS. ELIZABETH ARNOLD AS A MOTHER

CHAPTER XII.

DOUBLE DILIGENCE

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PART III.--RETIREMENT

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CHAPTER I.

HOMES OP EARLY METHODISTS

CHAPTER II.

JOSHUA ARNOLD

CHAPTER III.

SEPARATION

CHAPTER IV.

CONCLUSION

ELIZABETH, THE DISINHERITED DAUGHTER.

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