• Difficulties and Defeats
Difficulties and Defeats Though Hannah remained an outcast from her family for some time because of leaving the Quaker Meeting, her sisters continued to be secret allies. They had always been very close, and during the time of greatest family distress,
Mary and Sally stood loyally behind Hannah, even though she was able to communicate with them only by letter for some time: Her staunchly Quaker brothers-in-law refused to welcome her into their homes.
Gradually, however, Sally and Mary softened up their stubborn husbands. After some months of cold silence had elapsed, Hannah was once more admitted to their homes.
In spite of the vehement opposition of Hannah's father to her defection from the Quakers, he had loved her too long and too dearly to be able to freeze her out of his life for long. By the early 1860s, tempers had cooled, reason had returned, and Hannah found herself once again restored to the bosom of her family.
In the beginning of 1861 , however, the Smith family was faced with a new crisis. Robert's publishing business had gone bankrupt because his impulsive nature had led him into many wrong decisions. Pride and a certain degree of arrogance had kept him from confiding in Hannah and oth-
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ers when steps might have been taken to avert this failure.
A change of lifestyle was necessary. Their lovely, spacious home must now be rented. Frank's nurse was let go.
For the summer, cheap lodgings were found in Atlantic City facing the seashore, while efforts were made to salvage something from the business.
Around six o'clock on a particular morning in August, Hannah was sitting on the piazza, hoping the ocean sights and sounds might bring some comfort. She was huddled into a beach chair, with her ever-present journal, inkwell and pen. Heavy, forbidding clouds obscured the sun. The ocean was dark gray and turbulent. Large waves slapped at the cold, wet sand. Hannah pulled her cashmere shawl more closely around her and gave way to her thoughts, which were almost as uneasy as the elements.
/ am so afraid that Robert is having some sort of breakdown. He doesn't sleep at night. His thinking is disordered.
He takes endless walks up and down the beach, returning all disheveled, with a wild look in his eyes. What will happen to our little family if Robert has a complete breakdown and is unable to work for months, maybe years?
Robert seemed to be at war with himself, which perhaps triggered Hannah's next thoughts about the nation, which was sunk into the depths of the Civil War. What will be the future of our country if the South wins, as it surely must— the union broken, two separate nations living practically under the same roof? The future looks uncertain and frightening.
All around is change and brokenness—in our family and throughout our battle-scarred nation. What will become of *Author's note: As a side note, contemporary readers are often puzzled when reading biographies of men and women of the Civil War era: How could they have lived through such a bloody time in America's history, and seem so little affected by it, at least as the evidence in their letters and journals would indicate? Remember that, in those days, a distance of even fifty miles was
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She turned her chair around to the table, and opened her journal and began to write:
Amid many deep and perplexing trials I feel that it is an especial blessing that my faith is not suffered to fail.
Though some things which I made special subjects ofprayer have seemed to go wrong in every way.
. The Lord has enabled me to say from the depths of a storm-tossed soul, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." Oh, how I pray that this may continue to be the case. I see trials before me from which my flesh and heart may well shrink unless the Lord shall sustain me.
Hannah closed her journal, straightened her shoulders, and resolutely went inside the boardinghouse. It was nearing seven a.m., and seven-year-old Frank would be waking soon.
The above passage, written when Hannah was 29 years old, revealed the foundation stones of a faith that was to sustain her through even fiercer winds of the soul than those that pounded at her in the summer of 1861. The words "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him" would come back to her many times in the years that followed.
During the winter of 1861-1862, the Smiths lived in a cheap boardinghouse in order to save money. After that, little is known of their fortunes until 1864 when apparently
Hannah's father helped them financially. Robert, meanwhile, must have recovered from his partial breakdown.
During the latter part of the Civil War, he and his younger vast, and accounts of battles even as great as the bloodbath at Gettysburg came only by wire and newspaper, with nothing at all of the sound and visual impact of the satellite-feeds that penetrate our living rooms today. The war was indeed a matter of endless conversation, and of public prayers in the churches. But for all—especially those with pacifist-determinations, like the Pearsall Smiths, their family and friends—the war was a terrible and distant matter. And of course, as is true with each of us, there were still daily pressures of child rearing and making a livelihood. And for Hannah, there was the personally threatening matter of Robert's rising and plunging fortunes, and the darker side of his personality.
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brother, Horace, spent some months in a hospital in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, nursing the wounded. Their Quaker consciences would not allow any of the family to take up arms.
Meanwhile, the Whitall family had bought a large summer home in Haddonfield, New Jersey. They called it "The Cedars." Sometime in May 1864, the Pearsall Smiths were spending a few weeks at The Cedars with Hannah's sister
Mary, her husband, plus numerous children.
One afternoon Hannah was sitting in the little back parlor that she had appropriated for herself in the rustic barracks-like structure of The Cedars. A May breeze was blowing the sweet scent of the surrounding evergreens in through an open window. She sat in a wicker rocking chair; at her feet was a cradle. Quietly sleeping there was her three-month-old baby girl, Mary.
After years of barrenness, Hannah had given birth to a daughter who was now filling the empty place left by the death of Nellie seven years before.
Every few moments Hannah bent down to caress the soft cheek and feel the spun-silk curls of little Mary. Even after three months of cherishing this tiny morsel of humanity, her mother still had to touch her many times a day to reassure herself that it was no dream. She expressed some of these feelings in a letter to her sister Sally: / expected to enjoy my baby—if I should have one, but I never expected such an overflowing gush oflove and tenderness constantly welling up in my heart. It sometimes seems awful to have anything so unspeakably precious. 1
At that moment the door of the parlor opened and a travel-stained Robert burst in. He had just come from Philadelphia on the train and appeared hot, dusty, and tired.
But there was a spark of the old intensity in him as he tossed his silk hat onto the nearest chair and, unbuttoning his frock coat, threw himself down on the wicker chair.
"Well, my dear wife, I have been to see thy father and it is all settled," he announced jubilantly. "We are to move
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to Millville, New Jersey.
I am to be the manager of the Whitall-Tatum Glass Works there."
Hannah was startled. "Thou and father decided it all?
Without one word to me about all these plans?"
Robert hardly heard her. "With all the debts of the old business, thy father and I have agreed that it was best to make a new start. And just think, dear wife," he said soothingly, "I will be making a good salary in Millville and we shall be able to get back on our feet financially."
"I see," Hannah replied, struggling with her emotions.
"Thee and father have doubtless worked out a good plan but I had not five words conversation in this decision that is to affect my future as well as yours! Of all the husbands
I know," she continued, "thee is the only one who treats thy wife as an equal. And now this. I am sorely disappointed."
"I acted in haste," Robert nodded. "But thy father has always advised us soundly. We shall never go wrong if we follow his counsel." 3
And so, in the summer of 1864, the Pearsall Smiths moved to Millville, New Jersey, a short journey away from Hannah's family. Though Hannah found Millville a dreary, depressing little town, her growing family would keep her busy. Baby Mary was followed in rapid succession by Lloyd
Logan, born in 1865. Then came Alice (later spelled Alys) in 1867, and Rachel (Ray) in 1868.
In Millville, too, Hannah discovered a new dimension which enriched her faith. It came about during a period of rebellion and loneliness. She so missed her Christian friends and Bible study groups in Philadelphia that one evening she poured out her feelings to a visiting preacher.
He advised her to visit and try to help poor people in her neighborhood.
Hannah obeyed, but soon discovered that the women she talked to suffered from the same spiritual problems she had. "I was like a person trying to feed hungry people out of an empty bowl," she observed. "I went home more discouraged than ever."
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Yet Hannah did meet a spiritually alive dressmaker who would occasionally come to the Smith house to sew with her. The dressmaker held the view that there was such a thing as victory over temptation, that it came through a doctrine taught among Methodists, called "The Doctrine of Holiness." Out of this came an experience called "the second blessing," which brought one to a place of victory.
When the dressmaker urged Hannah to come to one of the little meetings they held each Saturday night, where people testified to these experiences, she hesitated. Hannah knew that most of those attending were factory workers. "I didn't think that poor working people had anything to offer me," she admitted. "I had studied and taught the Bible a great deal and felt I had more to teach them than they me."
But one Saturday night Hannah decided to go, filled, as she later put it, "with my importance and superiority." As she took her seat among the ranks at the meeting that evening, a factory woman with a shawl over her head stood up to speak before the group.
"My whole horizon used to be filled with this great big Me," the woman said in the course of her testimony, "but when I got sight of Jesus as my Savior, this great big Me melted down to nothing."
These words penetrated Hannah deeply. My Me was very big and very self-assertive, she reported, and I could not imagine how it could "melt down to nothing." But the conviction came that this was the real Christianity I had been longing for. Needless to say, I did no teaching that night, but sat as a learner at the feet of these humble Christians whose souls had evidently been taught by the Holy Spirit depths of truth of which I understood nothing.
Hannah began to attend this group regularly.
It was here she made the discovery that she had too much depended upon her own efforts, her own resolutions, her own fervency to try to achieve holy living. Now she saw that this was frustrating the grace of God to do a work of sanctification inside her. / alone can do nothing—and if the Lord
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does not do it all, it will not be done. But when I trust Him, He delivers me from the power of sin as well as from its guilt.
I can leave in His care my cares, my temptations, my growth, my service, my daily life, moment by moment. 4
Profoundly influenced by this "Doctrine of Holiness" in her Saturday night group, Hannah persuaded Robert to attend the camp meetings held every summer in Manheim,
Pennsylvania, by a Methodist Holiness group. Of special interest to them was the "second blessing" experience, also called the baptism of the Holy Spirit. This was to be a milestone in the spiritual experience of the Pearsall Smiths.
One July day in 1868 they arrived at the Manheim campgrounds, where a big tent was set up for services.
Each family attending brought their own tents and camping equipment. Robert and Hannah pitched their tent under a big tree.
When they awakened the next morning the air was fresh and clean, birds were chirping. Before breakfast Robert and a number of other seeking Chi istians gathered in one corner of the large tent, all on their knees, praying to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The air seemed charged with holy excitement. Several who claimed to have already received this special baptism laid hands on Robert and prayed earnestly for him to experience this same blessing. After a time of prayer, the little group disbanded.
Robert, deeply stirred by the earnest prayers of the believers, wandered off into the woods to be alone. For some moments he walked—then, finding a quiet nook under a large oak tree, he dropped to his knees and continued to pray. The morning sun warmed him, and all creation seemed astir with life.
These words were later used to describe what happened: "Suddenly from head to foot, Robert was shaken with what seemed like a magnetic thrill of heavenly delight and floods of glory seemed to pour through him, soul and
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body, with the inward assurance that this was the longedfor baptism of the Holy Spirit. The whole world seemed transformed to him, every leaf and blade of grass quivered with exquisite color, and heaven seemed to open out before him as a blissful possession. Everything looked beautiful to him, for he seemed to see the divine spirit within each one without regard to their outward seemings." 5
Robert returned to the main camp as if on wings. There he sought out Hannah as she was fetching buckets of water from the nearby brook, preparing to cook their breakfast.
When she saw him coming toward her, his face radiant with joy, she put down her buckets and rejoiced with him in his great blessing.
Hannah, too, longed desperately for this baptism. On the evening of the day that Robert had found this new presence of the Holy Spirit, Hannah was moved by the eloquent testimony of the holiness preacher. Songs of praise resounded through the forest. Seated on her camp stool in the midst of a great throng of worshipers, she prayed fervently. Let it be tonight, Lord. Let thy servant feel thy power.
As the preacher invited earnest seekers to come forward, Hannah went eagerly. She knelt by the rough bench that constituted the altar and felt herself on the verge of a wonderful spiritual blessing. She had brought several large handkerchiefs in case she dissolved into floods of spiritual tears. She waited. She felt the Lord's presence—a warmth, a sense that He was near—but no tears came.
All through 1 868 and up to June of 1 869, Hannah prayed constantly and earnestly for the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
She fasted, she sought out the counsel of other spiritual advisors. She experienced no floods of joy, nor any heavenly thrills that shook her from head to toe. Slowly, she became discouraged again about her spiritual state. Something must be wrong with her, she thought, that she was not receiving these blessings.
In June 1869, Hannah and her family were at The Cedars. For once the lodge was deserted except for the Pearsall
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Smiths, a Christian friend named James, and another guest, a devout man whom Hannah and Robert had met at the Holiness Camp Meeting the previous summer.
The new family nurse had put the little ones to bed and had retired to her own room. Fifteen-year-old Frank was visiting a cousin. The main room at The Cedars was spacious, with a high-beamed ceiling and an oversized open hearth fireplace. Off in one corner were Robert, James, the visitor, and Hannah, the dim oil lamps casting a half-light on their faces.
Hannah had been fasting and praying for two weeks, almost around the clock. Even in the faint light she looked haggard. With the prolonged loss of sleep, she appeared a little unkempt, and she was extremely tense, jumping at the slightest noise.
James spoke up. "I have spent much of this day meditating on thy problem, dear sister, and it seemed that the Lord spoke to me that the three of us were to continue in prayer and wrestling all night, if need be, that thee will experience the blessed baptism of the Holy Spirit."
Robert nodded vigorously. "I too feel that we must persevere all night in supplication to the Lord on behalf of my wife."
Hannah twisted her hands nervously. "I am determined that tonight is the night. I will pray until I either receive it or fall in a swoon."
All three of them got down on their knees on the bare floor of The Cedars and prayed and prayed and prayed. As the oil lamps grew dimmer, the kneeling figures did not falter. Hour after hour they prayed on. Brother James was exhorting the Lord loudly at three a.m. when Hannah stopped him.
Hesitantly she spoke up, her voice hoarse from hour after hour of pleading. "I think I feel a quiet, weak consciousness of God's presence, like a still small voice. I simply know that the Lord has come in and taken possession of my heart and has set up His kingdom there and that
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there is nothing more needed, no manifestation of His presence or His love, no melting of heart, no fullness of joy." 6
In the silence of that darkened room a sweet and holy quiet descended upon the persevering prayers. Wearily, they disbanded and trudged off to bed.
Hannah never did experience any emotional evidence to accompany her belief that the Holy Spirit was with her in some fuller, deeper way by faith. She later concluded that what was called "the blessing" was simply the emotional response of emotional natures such as Robert's. To her more practical and rational nature, spiritual truth was imparted as a growing conviction about the truth of the gospel—and to Hannah, it was the truth, not the emotions, that set the soul free. 7
As time went on, she also noticed that emotional experiences very often were not as solid and permanent as the more intellectual ones. Robert, her impulsive husband, had received the baptism in a very dramatic and unmistakable way. Hannah would long for a vivid, tangible expression of God's presence all her life, but never received it.
It was ironic that someone with such an erratic nature as Robert's should rise to exalted heights, whereas the steadfast Hannah never had any dramatic manifestations of God's presence.
God was teaching her to trust in Him alone.