7 - Unconditional Surrender

FOLLOWING MARTHA WING’S deliberate decision to go her own way, her ills and disorders developed with such rapidity that soon she was “compelled to spend about eighteen hours of the twenty-four in bed. If, during any emergency, I ‘wound up’ my nerves to greater exertion, or remained out of bed longer than usual, a severe relapse resulted. In a short time I could so exhaust my powers that weeks would elapse before I regained what I had lost. “As an instance, at one time, getting some Christian Science nonsense into my head, I thought to believe myself back into health, and for a few days rallied all the strength I had in the determination to be well. The first and second days I pulled through but suffered intensely at night. The third night, after the greatest exertion, I could not sleep, and for weeks the sense of exhaustion never left me for a moment. It resulted in my consenting to go to the hospital.” Three days after her twenty-third birthday, on November 17, 1897, Martha Wing entered Mercy Hospital, Davenport. There she “spent three months . . . taking massage and elec­trical treatment under the care of Dr. W. D. Middleton, one of the best physicians” of the city. “He was very kind to me,” she subsequently wrote, “but from the first gave me little promise of help.” For eight weeks she remained in bed but “failed to get rested.” As for her spiritual condition, it is best described in her own words: “Then broader the pathway, and wider the way, And farther and farther from God’s glorious day; So dark was the night, the sunshine without, My soul filled with wond’rings and wav’rings and doubts. But despite outer warnings, and warrings within, I turned still from my God, and I clung to my sin.” Sometime before Martha Wing had entered the hospital, she had become acquainted with a group of young people whose main interest, like hers, was in literature. They were, however, infidels and atheists and naturally propagated their ideas. Having turned from God and His light, the soil of her heart was good ground for the seeds of scepticism and un­belief which they sowed. Now these were watered by further contacts in the hospital. Sharing her room was a woman of culture whom Miss Wing found to be a most congenial companion. Her friend’s husband possessed similar tastes and proved to be a con­siderate, welcome visitor. To her surprise Miss Wing found that he, too, was an atheist. The fact is that “he seemed diabolically appointed to influence her yet more along the lines of atheism.” So it was that in the winter of 1897-98 she found herself “under atheistic reading and influence, dangerously close to infidelity.” Now Martha Wing quickly drifted: “Down towards the depths of man’s darkest woe, Down where no ray of God’s glory can glow, Down to the quicksands on Unbelief’s shore, That Sea of the Dead, where life comes no more To those, who, having God face to face known, From His Love and His Glory have willfully flown.” This “drifting” is clearly reflected in the carefully kept list of books which Martha Wing read during 1897. All in all she read thirty-three books, many of them unusually long. Beginning with a translation of Goethe’s Faust, her reading included the Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a num­ber of long poems, novels, and a few stories specifically designated as religious. Then number “16” on her list was Marcella by the avowed agnostic but popular author of her day, Mrs. Humphrey Wardⁿ. A novel of upwards of a thousand pages, there was in it “an immense amount of radical talk.” “Very good” was Martha Wing’s comment about the book. Note: In her first novel, Robert Elsemere, Mrs. Ward had done her best to destroy belief in the Bible, certain if that was accomplished, agnosticism and atheism would be sure to follow. More than a million copies were eventually sold. So important and effective did her arguments appear at the time that none other than the Prime Minister of England, William E. Gladstone, took up the chal­lenge with his book, The Battle of Belief. Number “27” was another book by the same author, The History of Henry Grieve, which the reader did not think so highly of, but having the same attitude towards things religious, it was not without its influence. The next to the last book which she read in 1897 was The French Revolution by Thomas Carlyle. That she read it through is in itself a testimony to her prowess in reading, for it has the reputation among even the most brilliant and omniverous of readers as a book which nobody ever finishes. “Repellent as a page of Sanskrit” was one great reader’s first reaction. Carlyle’s style is generally considered to be “tortuous” and “obscure.” To Martha Wing, however, “It seemed to me the most wonderful book I ever read,” and she gave it first place in “Books in 1897 I most enjoyed.” The French Revolution, it should be remembered, is the account not only of a political and social revolution but of a religious revolution as well, in which a form of Christianity, corrupted to be sure, is overthrown and the Goddess Reason is set up as the object of worship in place of the Christ of the Cross. Now a book is bound, in some way or other, to express or betray its author’s beliefs. Carlyle, reared in a godly Scotch home and selected by his parents to be a minister as their special gift to God, had long since abandoned any belief in “revelation confirmed in historical miracles,” though he did retain the Christian Code of ethics and belief in a god whom he referred to as the Supreme Fact, “the living God of Nature.” Even the liberal theologians of the day were scan­dalized by his agnosticism and near blasphemy. But he was a literary genius of the highest order and as such he com­pletely captivated Martha Wing. Under ordinary circumstances The French Revolution should not necessarily influence the reader towards agnosti­cism and infidelity. The book is a vivid and dramatic narra­tive of one of the great but tragic epochs of history. But Martha Wing’s condition at this time was not ordinary, and such a book read at such a time when one was already filled with doubts could have quite an unintended, albeit sub­conscious, effect on the reader. In such company — good, moral, high-minded authors and friends, but agnostics and atheists — Martha Wing was spending her bed-ridden days and weeks, not without devas­tating results in her own life. Towards the middle of January, 1898, she was allowed to get up. “As soon as I arose from bed I again failed rapidly.” Her case baffled the specialist, and he concluded that noth­ing more could be done for her, as she was evidently dying from several incurable diseases. He recommended, there­fore, that she go home and be made as comfortable as possible for the remaining months of her life — a year or so at the most, so he told Mrs. Wing. Miss Wing’s roommate was leaving the hospital at the same time as she was, and as she had enjoyed her company so much in the hospital, she invited her to go home with her for a time. People of some means, her friends were employ­ing a trained nurse who, they suggested, could care for both of them. The arrangement seemed ideal. Miss Wing accepted this gracious offer and went to her friend’s home, January 30, where she was to spend the next two months. Physically, every comfort possible was provided for the guest. The congenial nurse gave all the attention and care possible and was also a welcome companion. The time was spent much as it had been during the previous months. The invalid read a good deal — primarily novels. Her host was interested in astronomy which doubtless accounts, in part at least, for two volumes read during this period: Wonders of the Heavens by Camille Flemmarion and Wonders of the Moon by Amelie Guillemin. In addition to reading, there was also “good talk,” which would probably be termed bril­liant conversation among intellectuals. Alas, though, a much more direct and constant influence towards atheism was now exerted on Miss Wing by her friends who continued to furnish her with infidel literature. “Down, downward I went; one more step to take To enter those depths where God must forsake Forever my soul; one last call He gave, Sounding faint from afar, but ‘twas mighty to save, For, amidst earth’s loud turmoil, I heard, and I fled Back, back, in wild fear, from the Sea of the Dead.” One evening Martha Wing’s host informed her and his wife there would be some special phenomenon in the heavens that night at nine o’clock and said he would bring his telescope into their room so that they might observe this celestial wonder. That night, as she gazed at the heavens, brought so near by means of the telescope, the glory and beauty of the stars thrilled Martha Wing as never before. Instinctively she thought, “Someone must have made those stars.” “Perhaps there is a God after all!” was a second thought which followed the first in swift succession. Then it came to her that if there was a God, how terrible it was to be ignoring Him as she was doing, for if He existed and the Bible was true, she would soon go to hell. But how could one know? There seemed to be no way to find out whether there was a God or not. The Bible and the Christians said there was; the infidels and their literature said there was not. Which was right? Could a person find out for sure? As she considered these questions, there came to her a Bible verse she had learned as a child in Sunday school: Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. She decided to put this verse to the test and by it en­deavor to prove whether or not there was a God. Immedi­ately she began to pray, “0 God, if there is a God, if You are anywhere in existence, won’t You let me know You?” Quietly, in a whisper that no one might know what she was doing, she prayed. On and on she continued, without sleeping, through the midnight hours, and into the early morning hours till daybreak. Throughout all of the next day she pursued her quest with unabated ardor and vigor. Finally, after twenty-two hours of continuous prayer, she fell asleep, exhausted. When she awoke two hours later, she felt almost ashamed that she had slept while praying about such an important matter — to know if there is a God. But her common sense came to her aid and so she made this covenant: “God, if You are in existence, You know that I am a helpless invalid and that I have to sleep a little. I promise You this, how­ever, that I won’t sleep anymore than I absolutely have to, and all the rest of the time I will pray.” Then she resumed her prayer and continued in great earnestness. In spite of her weak and painful condition, dying from incurable diseases, she prayed an average of eighteen hours a day for a month. But there was no answer to her cry. The heavens were brass; her very words seemed empty and futhe. “Ah, dim was the light in those quicksands of doubt, And fiercest the fightings within and without; With that Dead Sea lying close, a black yawning grave, And God so far off I scarce knew He could save; And my sin weighing down each step of the way, Where perilous pitfalls of dark doubtings lay. “Then up from the quicksands so slowly I toiled, Repeatedly burdened, repeatedly foiled; The door of God’s Heaven against me closed fast, My prayers seemed unheard, as onward I passed; Creeping and falt’ring o’er the path where before I had swept on Love’s wings straight to Beulah Land’s shore. “Falt’ring and slipping, weeping weak tears, Troubled by all my old doubtings and fears, Pausing sometimes in the coldest despair, Alternately hoping and fearing in prayer, Hearing naught of God’s voice in earth’s darkness and din, Upward I climbed — but I clung to my sin.” At the end of a month she felt she had given God’s promise a fair enough trial and was just about ready to conclude that there was no God, that the Bible was not true, and that she would pray no more. Certainly if there was a God, He would in some way answer the intense and sincere supplication a helpless invalid had offered for a month. As she contemplated the abandonment of her quest, it came to her to try just once more. In businesslike fashion she told God — if He existed — of her decision and solemnly vowed that if He would reveal His reality to her for just one minute in the middle of the coming night, she would never stop praying as long as she lived, but that if He didn’t, she would never pray again as long as she lived. With this impassioned cry she fell asleep, but exactly at midnight she awoke. For one moment the heavens seemed to open above her, and the Holy Spirit made the existence of God such a reality to her that never again could she question it. She had received her answer. “I think I was the happiest person in the world — just to find out there is a God!” With this discovery came the desire and determination to serve Him even if she awoke in hell.” A revelation of God and His greatness is always .accompanied by a revelation of one’s true self and littleness. The soul sees itself as it is, as God sees it, for in the presence of Him whose “eyes are as a flame of fire” “all things are naked and open.” So it was now with Martha Wing. “Startled at my own spiritual condition, I deliberately faced the circumstances, and recognizing the fact that my drifting and sin were the direct result of my refusal to conse­crate myself, and especially all these years to give up one thing which God asked of me, ‘I sat down and counted the cost,’ saw the paths were sharply defined, and that either I must be all for God, or Satan would have all. “Finding myself dangerously near infidelity, I turned back and deliberately, merely by force of will, resolved to serve God and yield those things I had withheld even during the time of my greatest spiritual blessing. “I had done the same thing many times before, but this time I willed to be God’s. I put myself into His hands and promised to live for Him if I were so permitted, or die if He willed; for I did not then know Him well enough to under­stand that my death was not His will. Knowing my tendency to go back, I asked God to give me a seeking spirit to search until I found Him. I did not feel then that I was answered, and for weeks I spent my time in a deliberate searching for what I had once thrown away.” A little later she poetically described the events of the night when she made her last try to find God: “At last from afar came the echo of Love, ‘My Lord,’ wild I cried, ‘if in Heaven above There’s mercy for me; if God be at all, Oh, answer me now, e’er I faint and I fall. Is there a Beulah Land, fairer than day? Oh, if there is such, let me enter, I pray. “Then softest of whispers came in answer to me, ‘Long ago that Fair land was open to thee; One step, and safe then thou hadst been in the fold, Thou needst never have gone into darkness and cold; But I say to thee now, as I said then to thee, If thou wouldst enter, thou must give all to Me.’ “Oh, down from my hands fell my poor, paltry sin. And I cried, ‘I am Thine; my Lord, let me in. Ay, long have I wandered afar from Thy side, For hard was my heart, and foolish my pride: Oh, take me and make me what Thou dost will, My heart is all empty that Thou mayst fill.’” Unknown and unrealized by her at the time was the fact that as a result of her weeks of intense praying, weeks when nothing seemed to be happening, she had been delivered from the evil powers of unbelief and infidelity which had possessed her, and now she was able to make the “total self-surrender to God” which Uncle William Blair had urged upon her more than six years before. Over six years of rebellion against God! With this restora­tion there could not but be regret, and her rejoicing was not such as she experienced when she had “received the witness of the Spirit” a year and a half before. “Yes, God took me in from the darkness and cold, Made me His own, a sheep of His fold; His Hand holds me up, His Grace makes me free, But I’ve lost the first blessing His love gave to me. No Pentecost shower filled my soul as before, For faith, without feeling, had opened the door. “Alas for the radiance of God’s love within, That I lost when I clung to my poor, paltry sin. Alas! for the days so willfully spent Away from His presence on earth’s pleasure bent. Had I but yielded to the Potter as clay, What might I not be in His service today?” That opportunity seemed irretrievably lost, now that she was an invalid, but in the impossibility and hopelessness of her condition there is courage and confidence: “But God is mine own, and Jesus is mine, And sometime, I know, His glory will shine Once more in my soul, if in Him I abide And in ne’er-failing faith keep close at His side. If I have no will but His will so sweet, He will make me a vessel for His use complete.”