• Robert's Fall
Robert's Fall Exhausted when the Brighton Conference was over, Hannah decided to go to Switzerland for a rest. She left
England on June 14, with 1 1 -year-old Mary and her cousin, William Hilles, for a two-week trip through the Alps.
She negotiated the Channel crossing on her return trip without being sick, and was seated in the train in Dover waiting for it to depart. She was on her way back to Monkhams to visit the children and to meet Robert so that they might continue on to the many conferences that had been arranged for them for the rest of the summer.
Hannah rested her head against the green plush seat of the train and wondered why it was taking so long for it to get moving. She was feeling very thankful and satisfied about the last two years. The Lord had poured out so many blessings. Robert's nervousness was entirely gone. He had become a world-famous preacher. There was sweet accord once again between husband and wife as they did the Lord's work together. They were comfortable financially at last, and back in America her latest book was already in popular demand in the bookshops. On the home front, they had four intelligent children. Hannah was just thinking about her eldest daughter, Mary, who was growing into a beautiful
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and poised young lady. She took special delight in this child.
At that moment a telegraph boy came running down the platform, shouting, "Telegram for Mrs. Pearsall Smith."
Hannah waved at him through the open window.
The telegram was from Mr. Barclay and read: Mr. Smith ill in Paris at the Hotel Louvre. We think you should return to him at once. All conferences given up.
Hannah was deeply disturbed—and perplexed. Robert had no preaching mission in Paris; he was supposed to be in England at the Keswick Conference. A quick change in plans was made. Mary went on to the Barclays with the other adults in their party, while Hannah returned alone by the night boat to Paris.
As she traveled through the darkness, fidgeting uncomfortably in the ship's lounge, Hannah's thoughts churned.
What could have happened? Her last news of Robert had been so different. Why had Robert fled from England to Paris? Was it another breakdown? Over and over, she had to force her troubled thoughts to turn from doubt and fear to the soothing refrain of one of the Brighton hymns: "Trusting as the moments fly, trusting as the days go by; trusting
Him whate'er befall, trusting Jesus, that is all." 2
When Hannah arrived at the Hotel Louvre, she longed for nothing more than a hot bath and sleep. Her eyes felt gritty from being awake so long, but she straightened herself resolutely and marched up the stairs to her husband's room.
Robert was prostrate on his bed, too ill to eat or sleep a wild, tormented look on his face. Hannah recognized, with a sinking heart, the same old symptoms of nervous disorder. He looked as he did during those nightmarish months when he was at the sanitorium at Clifton Springs, in the fall of 1873.
"Robert, why is thee here?" Hannah spoke gently.
Robert could only talk in jerks and fits, a phrase or two at a time. "I left London .
. wanted to come on to Swit-
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zerland to be with thee." His voice was a dry, cracked whisper. "Couldn't get that far
. too sick. Collapsed here."
Hannah folded her hands together and tried to ignore the fact that they were trembling. "But, dearest husband, why? Why is thee not at the Keswick Conference?"
Tears came unbidden to his eyes and rolled down his face. "Mr. Blackwood," he began again, "told me I must not preach.
. Canceled all meetings."
"Darling," she answered, altogether puzzled, "what made him do such a thing?"
At this, Robert roused himself from his semi-stupor. His voice came out clearer than before. "Does thee remember
Miss Hattie Hamilton?"
"Yes," replied Hannah, "I remember her being very free with thee at Brighton—thee told me that thee thought of her in a fatherly way."
"I did think of her in a fatherly way," Robert said bitterly. "But there was more. After thee left for Switzerland, she requested a private interview with me. It was late at night and she asked me to come into her bedroom.
I thought at the time that that was not quite proper, but her spiritual distress seemed so great." Here Robert stopped and groaned.
Hannah was feeling tense, but managed to keep her voice quiet and even. "And what happened then?"
"Well, Miss Hattie was crying in a very uncontrolled way. She seemed almost in hysterics. She was sitting on her bed shaking all over and telling me over and over that she didn't feel that Jesus had accepted her as His child. She looked so forlorn there, so lonely and sad. I went over and sat beside her on the bed and put my arm around her to soothe her." Robert's voice faded away.
"I did not feel attracted to her," he protested after a moment. "I only felt toward her as a father might feel toward his child who needed comfort. And, as the two of us sat together on the bed, I explained to her the precious doctrine that Dr. Foster told us about at Clifton Springs.
I HI
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told her how Christ wanted us to feel thrills up and down our bodies because this would make us feel closer to Him."
"No!" Hannah gasped. She leaned her head back against the chair for a moment. "Thee didn't tell her that!
How many times have I warned thee of passing that doctrine in secret to thy female followers?
I told thee before that that was a delusion and could only lead to trouble.
Why did thee not give heed to my warnings?"
Robert held his hands to his head. "Oh, my head aches so. I can't bear to think about this anymore. Please, let me try to sleep."
"Yes," Hannah went on patiently. 'We must call a doctor and he will give thee drops to help thee sleep. But first, I must know the rest. What did thy 'fatherly comforting' have to do with Mr. Blackwood?"
Robert groaned. "Miss Hamilton went to Mr. Blackwood the following morning and told him that I had explained to her the physical thrills that a man and a woman can experience together while holding each other and praying. That is not what I told her," Robert said vehemently.
"And she said I had tried to make love to her. That is not true."
"But Mr. Blackwood is thy friend and sponsor"—Hannah was aghast—"he will not believe that conniving little liar."
"Oh, but he did. He did believe her." Robert kneaded Hannah's hand with his nervous fingers. "He never even consulted with me. And he called all the other ministers in for a meeting and told them all that she had said." Robert was on the verge of breaking down again. "He believed her, and the other ministers believed him. I didn't even have a chance to defend myself. The next day he called me into his office and informed me that all the meetings were canceled. I was asked to cease all preaching."
Robert released her hand and rocked back and forth. "I sat in Mr. Blackwood's office and started to cry. I was angry with myself for losing my dignity like that, but I couldn't
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help it. I lost control and I sat there and cried. I told him over and over that I had nothing but a fatherly feeling for Miss Hattie, that I was sorry for telling her about the secret doctrine. Mr. Blackwood did not believe me." 3
Robert's escapade with Hattie Hamilton was eagerly reported by the press. The Brighton Weekly headlined it:
Famous Evangelist Found in Bedroom ofAdoring Female Follower. With that kind of publicity, Robert's preaching career in Europe was destroyed.
Hannah stayed on in the Hotel Louvre for several days with the trembling, frightened shell that her husband had become. When reason seemed to return to the broken man, she persuaded him that the family should return to America. Later she wrote to a friend: Robert has had a complete breakdown. He has lost twenty pounds already and is suffering very much from almost constant nausea. But the Lord has taught us the lesson of living by the moment, and I am not anxious* And so the Smiths left the scene of their widely publicized religious triumphs and returned in disgrace to America.
Weeks later, to silence the British newspapers, which had gleefully pounced on Robert's "scandal," the Brighton
Conference Committee released the following statement:
Some weeks after the Brighton Conference it came to our knowledge that the individual referred to (meaning Robert Pearsail Smith) had, on some occasions, in personal conversation, inculcated doctrines which were most unscriptural and dangerous. We also found that there had been conduct which, although we were convinced that it was free of all evil intention, was yet such as to render action necessary on our part. We therefore requested him to abstain at once from allpublic work, and when the circumstances were represented to him in their true light, he entirely acquiesced in the propriety of this course. 5
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The Smiths settled uneasily in Philadelphia at the Filbert Street home, which was next door to Hannah's father and mother. Since her father was becoming quite feeble, she spent most of her time caring for him, Robert, and her children, finding very little time left for public work in the year that elapsed after the Brighton disaster. Robert went sluggishly to work and tried to enter into the family doings—but the heart had gone out of him.
Hannah wrote to her British friend Mrs. Barclay in June 1876:
It makes my heart ache to look at my dear husband and think of the blight that has fallen on him. You think that I make a mistake to say that his life is blasted. You would not say this if you knew him. A more sensitive, tender-hearted, generous man never lived, and this blow has sorely crushed him in every tender spot. He often says to me that his life is one long agony.
. It could not be otherwise, and I have not the faintest hope that he will ever recover from it. There are storms which uproot and overturn even the stateliest of trees and what wonder then if the weaker ones are utterly prostrated by them? My life is full of the dear children's interests and of the sweet cares for my husband and parents. A commonplace life is, I am sure, the most desirable for a woman. 6
But Hannah was not destined to lead the commonplace life for very long. Robert's religious colleagues and supporters in the United States were determined to reinstate him in the eyes of the religious world. Neither Robert nor Hannah had any desire to go back to the life of preaching or teaching; but after repeated entreaties, the Smith husband-and-wife team agreed to appear at the Framingham Conference in the summer of 1876.
And so in July, Robert and Hannah dragged themselves away from the quiet restfulness of The Cedars and arrived with reluctance in Framingham. By the fourth night of the
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conference, Robert was preaching with all his old fervor.
His voice rang out over the convention hall urging the congregation to holiness. Sinners wept. There was an overall consciousness of the presence of the Holy Spirit. As Robert spoke, those present felt the touch of God's power in their lives. When he finished his sermon with an altar call, many came forward.
Back inside the hotel bedroom, Hannah lit the gas lights as Robert collapsed on a chair. "What a wearisome performance," he moaned. "I am counting the hours until we can get away and go back to the seclusion of The Cedars."
Hannah stared at him in surprise. "I don't understand it, dear husband. Although I cannot imagine a meeting begun in a worse frame of mind, yet blessings were pouring out."
"There is no enthusiasm in my heart," muttered the exhausted Robert. "The meetings are a bore. The work is a treadmill.
I don't know how I can hold out for two more days."
Hannah was thoughtful. "Then the hand of the Lord must be truly at work. He was there both in my Bible lessons and in thy preaching."
"Well, let the hand of the Lord do it then," Robert replied petulantly. "I just want to get out of here."
Hannah shook her head in bewilderment. "They all say this is the best meeting ever held in this country. And it really is a good meeting. I can sense here the same wave of blessing as swept over our English meetings. It so upsets all my preconceived notions that I do not know what to make of it."
Robert sighed wearily. "As for me, no matter how much they beg, I am done. No more meetings. Someone else may preach."
"No matter how confused we feel about the meeting,"
Hannah concluded, "it is a satisfaction to see thee treated with all the old deference and respect. No one even seems to remember the English scandals."
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Robert stayed to the end of the Framingham Conference, but by 1877, he was having increasing doubts about his beliefs. In fact, he was in the process of losing his faith altogether. Hannah's internal conflicts were of a different nature. Her logical mind had trouble making sense of the events of the last two years.
Robert's disgrace at Brighton had been a terrible blow.
Two years later, Hannah was still trying to understand why the Lord had allowed it to happen. She and Robert had certainly been doing a fruitful work for the Lord. Then why?
Carefully she went back over the section she had written about this in The Christians Secret of a Happy Life:
The life offaith becomes an impossible and visionary theory if we believe that human beings can come in and cause trouble for us and that God does nothing about it. What good is there in trusting our affairs to God if, after all, man is to be allowed to come in and disarrange them? And how is it possible to live by faith ifhuman agencies, in which it would be wrong and foolish to trust, are to have a prevailing influence in molding our lives?
. To the children of God, everything comes from their Father s hand, no matter who or what may have been the second causes or agents to bring it about. 1
Hannah had therefore concluded that "God is in everything" that happens to people who have committed their lives to Him.
Because Hannah believed that for the Christian, God directs the events of his or her life, she was forced to assume that the Brighton episode had come upon them direct from the hand of God. Blackwood and his friends may have been the actual instruments that brought about Robert's embarrassing dismissal from the Lord's service, but God must have allowed it to happen: indeed, must have wanted it to happen for some reason.
This line of reasoning upset Hannah very much and tried her faith to the utmost. Why would God want this to happen? What was wrong with her and Robert that God
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wanted them to cease their active labors for Him? Why didn't God stop Blackwood from jumping to conclusions and believing Miss Hattie Hamilton rather than Robert?
To add to Hannah's state of confusion, there was the question of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. During 1876 and 1877, she had again sought diligently for this blessing since numerous Christians among her friends and acquaintances were receiving floods of blessings from the experience. Yet, as she put it, "I remain a dry old stick."
Hannah could not help but wonder why Robert was granted the blessing so richly and then seemingly had allowed it to slip away when she longed and yearned in the fiercest kind of way to receive it and never "felt" anything.
Questions about God continued to plague her. For two years—from 1876 to 1878—her letters expressed her anxiety and doubt. Since faith in God was the most important thing in Hannah's life, her anguish of spirit must have been beyond belief as she feared that she was losing it.
On June 5, 1877, she wrote to Robert, who was traveling extensively on family business matters, that the unbelief of her heart was terrible. 8
June 20 she again wrote pathetically to Robert: / want thee to promise not to whisper a word of thy perplexities into my ears. It is a ticklish seat on top of a greased pole and the least push one way or other might upset me. 9 She felt her spiritual flabbiness to be such a danger that she went out of her way to make an effort to surround herself with Spiritfilled Christians so that she might maintain her precarious hold on her faith. She admonished Robert to do the same to surround himself with mature believers: / think it is a very critical time with thee, and if thee wants to get back to the old place, thee must put thyself under the right sort of influences. 10
She was to have been one of the leaders of a religious convention in 1877. This seemed, to her, preposterous, and she told a friend, / don't know how I can do my share at that 11 She felt like a meeting unless my soul is satisfied first.
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"pygmy" among baptized women, and went through a period of feeling that she had failed to receive the longed-for baptism because of her unbelief. She spoke of herself when she said, "The teacher of faith finds herself needing to be taught the very first principles." 12
By May of 1 878, Hannah was still going through a severe testing time, spiritually. Robert was now taking almost a hostile attitude toward matters of faith. But Hannah was made of sterner stuff. Like the house built upon a rock, she stood firm against the storm. Writing to her friend Anna
Shipley on May 20, she said:
By faith I claim that I have the baptism of the Spirit. And it really does seem to me that if the Bible is true, I must have it. But I am just the same as ever, and find no change -whatever in my inward experience; and therefore I feel sure there must be something wrong. Perhaps it is not knowing the inward voice. But one thing I know, and that is that I am all the Lord's and that His will is infinitely and unspeakably sweet to me. It grows lovelier all the time, and I wonder how anyone can fear it or rebel against it. And like a poor little child who has lost its way, I creep into the dear arms ofmy Father and just ask Him to carry me, since
I cannot understand His directions. He doeth all things well and I can leave myself with Him. 13