XXXIII The Magdalen
That celebrity was very far from corresponding to the present dispositions and aspirations of the ex-adventuress. While travelling from town to town the transmutation of her emotions into religious fervour had gone on unchecked. The love she had once borne to men found an object in the unseen God; the wondering disgust excited by the memory of her relations with men she had learned to dislike became translated into repentance for sin; latent ambition now leaped up at the thought of a crown to be won beyond the tomb. Christianity offers us new worlds for old, promises new joys to those who have lost all zest for the old, proposes an objective which may be pursued to the brink of the grave, and assures every human being of the tremendous importance of his own destiny. For these reasons religion has always appealed with especial force to women in Lola’s situation, who, moreover, being usually deficient in the logical and critical faculties, are the less able to resist its appeal to their emotions.
During her stay in England Lola kept a spiritual diary, some fragments of which have been preserved to us. It is certainly illustrative of the depth and earnestness of her religious convictions, and it would be a cold-blooded act to analyse and to dissect the state of mind it portrays. The sentiments are often morbid in the extreme, as might be expected from one whose ideas of religion were derived from teachers of the extreme evangelical school. She writes:—
“Oh, I dare not think of the past! What have I not been? I lived only for my own passions; and what is there of good even in the best natural human being? What would I not give to have my terrible and fearful experiences given as an awful warning to such natures as my own! And yet when people generally, even my mother, turned their backs upon me and knew me not, Jesus knocked at my heart’s door. What has the world ever given to me? (And I have known all that the world has to give—all!) Nothing but shadows, leaving a wound on the heart hard to heal—a dark discontent.
“Now I can more calmly look back on the stormy passages of my life—an eventful life indeed—and see onward and upward a haven of rest to the soul. I used once to think that heaven was a place somewhere beyond the clouds, and that those who got there were as if they had not been themselves on the earth. But life has been given to me to know that heaven begins in the human soul, through the grace of God and His holy word. Those who cannot feel somewhat of heaven here will never find it hereafter.”
On another page we find:—
“To-morrow (the Lord’s day) is the day of peace and happiness. Once it seemed to me anything but a happy day, but now all is wonderfully changed in my heart.... What I loved before now I hate. Oh! that in this coming week, I may, through Thee, overcome all sinful thoughts, and love every one.
“Thankful I am that I have been permitted to pray this day. Three years ago I cried aloud in agony to be taken; and yet the great, All-Wise Creator has spared me, in His mercy, to repent. All that has passed in New York has not been mere illusion. I feel it is true. The Lord heard my feeble cry to Him, and I felt what no human tongue can describe. The world cast me out, and He, the pure, the loving, took me in.
“To-morrow is Sunday, and I shall go to the poor little humble chapel, and there will I mingle my prayers with the fervent pastor, and with the good and true. There is no pomp or ceremony among these. All is simple. No fine dresses, no worldly display, but the honest Methodist breathes forth a sincere prayer, and I feel much unity of soul. What would I give to have daily fellowship with these good people! to teach in the school, to visit the old, the sick, the poor. But that will be in the Lord’s good time, when self is burned out of me completely.”
The following entry is dated Saturday, in London:—
“Since last week my existence is entirely changed. When last I wrote I was calm and peaceful—away from the world. Now, I must again go forth. It was cruel, indeed, of Mr. E. to have said what he did; but I am afraid I was too hasty also. Ought I to have resented what was said? No, I ought to have said not a word. The world would applaud me; but, oh! my heart tells me that for His sake I ought to bear the vilest reproaches, even unmerited.
“Good-bye, all the calm hours of reflection and repose I enjoyed at Derby! My calm days at the cottage are gone—gone. But I will not look back. Onward! must be the cry of my heart.
“Lord, have mercy on the weary wanderer, and grant me all I beseech of Thee! Oh, give me a meek and lowly heart!”
It seems from this final extract that some painful circumstance compelled the writer against her will to go on her travels again. The diary affords proof that she was in England as late as September 1859; and the following year, she was again at New York.