There Shines A Light

Chapter 2—But a Child

The ancient town of Gorham, fourteen miles west and north of Portland, Maine, grew up around a fort built in 1744 for protection against the Indians. After the fashion of New England towns, it lengthened itself along the road leading to the older settlements, until it came to anchor four miles nearer Portland, at the site of the modern little city of Gorham; and in time the linking street withered away, leaving the remnants of the original town a small country community. TSAL 14.1

There, on November 26, 1827, were born the twin baby girls, Ellen and Elizabeth, youngest of the eight children of Robert and Eunice Harmon. The main part of the house in which they were born, a story-and-a-half structure, still stands, as the rear portion of a more modern and larger dwelling. It looks out over a far stretch of rolling countryside, dotted with lakes, and away to the White Mountains in New Hampshire, a beautiful and inspiring setting for the childhood of a messenger for God. TSAL 14.2

The twins, while sharing many admirable traits, were different in temperament. Elizabeth was a confiding child, placid but given to tears; Ellen was self-reliant, buoyant, sociable, courageous, and persevering. She was regarded by her parents with peculiar interest, and they entertained high hopes of a brilliant career for her. She herself, from her first school days, entertained the ambition to become a teacher. The family were deeply religious, members of the Methodist communion, in which Robert and Eunice Harmon led their children in spiritual service, as one after the other they entered the church. TSAL 14.3

Father Harmon was a hatter, in the days when industries had not yet besieged the gates of the factory, but were housed and conducted largely in the homes of the artisans; and all the Harmon family, even to the smallest children, were early inducted into phases of the business. Doubtless influenced both by the greater commercial opportunities and by the better schools for his children, Robert Harmon, in the early 1830’s, moved his family to the city of Portland, there continuing and expanding his home industry. TSAL 15.1

At the Brackett Street School, next to the city common (for Portland was still in the tradition of the New England village), Ellen and Elizabeth spent several happy, successful years in getting the rudiments of education. TSAL 15.2

They were approaching their tenth birthday, in the fall of 1837, when there occurred a crushing catastrophe which seemed to all concerned to put an end to the hopes and aspirations if not to the life of Ellen. Leaving school at the close of the day, with a schoolmate, the twins were hastening across the common toward home, when an older girl, thirteen years of age, who had become incensed over some trifle, followed them with name-calling and threats. Answering to their home training, they said no word in reply, but ran on. Ellen, however, turned to see how near their adversary was; and a heavy stone which the girl had thrown struck Ellen in the face, and she fell unconscious. TSAL 15.3

Soon reviving, but covered with blood which flowed freely from her wound, she was carried home, and there sank into a coma which lasted for three weeks. Almost no one thought she would live; but her calm and devout mother felt a conviction that she was to be spared for some purpose of God’s. TSAL 16.1

When she at last awoke, Ellen had no memory of her accident, and was puzzled as to the cause of her illness. As she gained a little strength, her curiosity was aroused by hearing callers murmur, “What a pity!” and, “I should never have known her.” Calling for a mirror, she gazed in astonishment and dismay at a countenance wholly strange to her. The bones of her nose had been smashed, completely altering her looks. Indeed, so different was her appearance that her father, absent on a business trip to the South, upon his return quite ignored her in the family circle, and inquired, “Where is my little Ellen?” TSAL 16.2

The crude surgery of the time could afford no remedy, and the child soon recognized that she must go through life with this disfigurement. Indeed, if modern skill in plastic surgery had then been available, it is a question whether she could have endured the necessary operations; for her nervous system was shattered, a state reinforced, doubtless, by the helpless fatalism of her elders and the aversion of many of her child acquaintances. TSAL 16.3

She was slow in recovering; but as soon as she seemed strong enough, her determination to continue her education induced her parents to enter her again in school. To no avail! Words swam before her eyes, and her trembling hand could form only an infant’s crude scrawl. Her teachers soon advised her to quit school until her health should have improved. But that desirable state seemed to retreat as she advanced. TSAL 16.4

Her hopes crushed, the ten-year-old girl entered upon an experience of six years which, though she knew it not, was to mature her and prepare her for her mission in life as the normal experience of her age could not have done. At first, in agony of mind, at times rebellious but quickly repentant, yet without assurance of hope, perplexed and dismayed by such tenets of the creed as everlasting torment for the damned, she fought in her child mind a dogged but despairing battle for righteousness, sure that she could never reach the state of perfection demanded of the Christian. Nor could she conceive of such a philosophy as Tennyson in her day expressed: TSAL 17.1

“Perplexed in faith, but pure in deeds,
At last he beat his music out.
There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.” TSAL 17.2

In her simplicity she knew only, as the preachers told, that “there is a heaven to win and a hell to shun.” But how to attain to the one and avoid the other—“O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death!” ²⁶ TSAL 17.3

Convinced that no one could understand her mental conflict, she locked her thoughts within herself, refusing even to unburden her mind to her sympathetic mother, who might have greatly relieved her. But, good little Methodist that she was, she dutifully accompanied her parents and brothers and sisters to class meeting and church, vainly seeking amid ecstatic testimony on the one hand and the threat of hell-fire on the other, to discover the way of the Christian. TSAL 17.4

In the summer of 1840 she accompanied her parents to the Methodist camp meeting at Buxton, Maine. Here, snatching relief and hope from scattered passages in preachers’ sermons, she at last caught from the recital of Esther’s resolution the determination: “I will go in unto the king, ... and if I perish, I perish.” Pressing forward, and bowing with others at the “mourners’ bench,” she prayed in her heart: “Help, Jesus! Save me, or I perish! I will never cease to entreat until my prayer is heard and my sins are forgiven.” TSAL 18.1

Suddenly the burden she had so long borne left her, and her heart was light. Alarmed at this unexpected relief, which she felt could not of right be hers, she tried to resume the load; but Jesus seemed so near and dear to her that she could only believe that He at last had become her Saviour. Precious Jesus! TSAL 18.2

Soon after the camp meeting, she with several others was taken into the Methodist church on probation. The question of the mode of baptism came up. Sprinkling was the usual ceremony, but immersion was granted to those who desired it. With eleven others, she chose this Scriptural baptism; and on a windy day, on the beach of the bay in front of the poet Longfellow’s home, while the waves dashed high, they were buried with their Lord in baptism. Complete happiness filled her heart as on that afternoon she was received into full church fellowship. TSAL 18.3

Still anxious to continue her education, in her thirteenth year she tried again to resume, entering a young ladies’ seminary in Portland. But her health rapidly failed, and the careless worldliness of the girls jarred upon her sensitive soul. Shortly she found it necessary to break off the attempt, and with great sadness she returned to her home. Nevermore was she to enter man’s schools; her education was taken in charge by the greatest Teacher of all time. TSAL 18.4

Her brief attendance at the seminary, however, seemed to have choked the channel of communication with heaven. Again she fell a prey to doubts and discouragement. Especially was she repelled by the vision of an angry God consigning His erring children to the flames of an eternal hell. Was this “Our Father”? A wall of darkness seemed to separate her from Him. TSAL 19.1

She found in her brother Robert, two years her senior, comfort and assurance, as one evening, while they were returning from a meeting, upon impulse she unburdened her heart to him. And Sarah, a sister four years older, a very earnest and practical Christian girl, gave her that sturdy support which was the beginning of a lifelong service. She took the twins into a missionary partnership with her, earning money at piecework for the purchase of religious literature, to be distributed gratuitously through appropriate channels. Ellen in her weakness could earn but twenty-five cents a day; but this she gladly added to the fund; and the sisters had great satisfaction in seeing their earnings go into service. Thus early and significantly did Ellen enter upon that literature service which in her later life she so greatly forwarded, both as author and as promoter of the publishing work. This occupation helped to take her mind away from herself and to stabilize her experience. She had never prayed in public, and had spoken only a few timid words at the prayer meetings. The duty to pray in the prayer meeting now pressed upon her; but with her doubts she could not overcome her fear. Her private prayers now seemed to rise no higher than her head. Her mental suffering became intense. Sometimes for a whole night she did not sleep, but waiting until her sister Elizabeth was deep in slumber, she would creep from her bed and, bowing with her face to the floor, remain groaning and trembling with anguish which could not be assuaged. She grew emaciated and weak, yet kept her mental suffering to herself. TSAL 19.2

Upon His troubled child the Saviour looked with pitying eye. Why must this mere girl endure such an ordeal? It was a part of her purification and of her preparation to understand and assuage the despair of men, women, and children to whom she was yet to minister. TSAL 20.1

God gave to her two dreams, as steps out of her bewilderment and fear. In the first she seemed to be before a noble temple, wherein was a Lamb appearing as though it had been slain. She stood amid a mixed multitude, a few of whom were seeking to enter, while the others were ridiculing and threatening them. She succeeded in entering; but, still hesitant to press forward, she waited until a trumpet blew. The throng shouted in triumph; then all was intense darkness, and she awoke to silent horror in the night. She felt her doom was fixed, that the Spirit of God had left her. TSAL 20.2

But soon came the second dream. In this an angel came to her and asked, “Do you wish to see Jesus?” “Yes, oh, yes!” she cried. He led her to a steep and frail stairway which they ascended, and a door was opened before them. Going in, suddenly she stood before Jesus. She shrank from His gaze, but He drew near with a smile, and laying His hand upon her head, He said, “Fear not.” It was the Hand which through three fourths of a century yet to come was to guide and uphold her. Too joyful to utter a word, she sank in ecstasy at His feet, while scenes of beauty and glory passed before her. At last, with the loving eyes of Jesus still upon her, she was taken by her guide outside, and she awoke. TSAL 20.3

This dream gave her hope, and at last she opened her heart to her mother. That wise and understanding woman comforted and reassured her. She likewise, having herself only recently come to an understanding of Bible truth as to the nature of the soul, relieved the mind of her daughter of the un-Biblical doctrine of everlasting torment. She advised her to seek the counsel of their pastor, L. F. Stockman. A saintly man, he listened sympathetically to the story that Ellen poured out to him. And then, placing his hand on her head, he said: “Ellen, you are only a child. Yours is a most singular experience for one of your tender age. Jesus must be preparing you for some special work.” He explained, counseled, and prayed with her, and in that short interview she found a greater understanding of the plan of salvation and the love of God. TSAL 21.1

Faith now took possession of her heart. As Elder Stockman had pointed out to her, even the misfortune which had blighted her hopes and ambitions was in the order of God, for His wise purpose, and she could leave herself in His hands with perfect trust. Without that sad happening, she, in her natural buoyancy, pride, and ambition, might never have yielded herself to her Saviour; now she was His forevermore. That evening, full of hope and faith, she attended a meeting at her uncle’s house. As she knelt with the company in prayer, her tongue was loosed, and she prayed aloud fervently. The next night she attended another meeting; and when opportunity was given for testimonies, she arose and, filled with the simple story of the love of Jesus, related how she had been liberated from the bondage of fear. Elder Stockman, who was present, witnessing this great change in her, wept aloud for joy, and all the people praised God. TSAL 21.2

Thereafter Ellen was invited to many a religious gathering to tell her story; for her testimony was found most effective in the conviction and conversion of sinners. She also labored personally for the salvation of her friends, praying for them and exhorting them. Some were at first careless and indifferent, being attracted only through curiosity as to what this child might say; but in the end every one of the circle was soundly converted. TSAL 22.1

Though yet but a child, like Samuel and like Jeremiah, Ellen too had received a call to be a spokesman for God; and well might it have been said to her, as to that shrinking but indomitable child of Anathoth: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I set you apart, I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” ²⁷ TSAL 22.2