Some of us are familiar with the story of Agnes Beaumont, the Puritan woman who struggled with her father’s opposition to her beliefs and had to face frightening accusations after his death.[1]
Less known but equally affecting is the story of Mary Churchman. Born in 1654 of zealous Anglican parents in Cambridgeshire, England, she inherited their disdain for nonconformists, so much that she would sic her big dog against a neighbor who attended a nonconformist church. “I used sometimes to encourage him for half a mile together with the most bitter invectives, such as saying, ‘My dog would smell the blood of fanatics,’ etc. The cur, though bad enough to others, yet, such was the preventing providence of God, that he never once fastened upon this gracious person.”[2]
Out of curiosity, she once accepted her neighbor’s invitation to one of her meetings, held by Francis Holcroft, a well-known nonconformist preacher. Holcroft’s talk of hell and judgment frightened her so much that she regretted going there. Back home, however, she couldn’t get the thoughts of Christ as a “terrible judge and enemy” out of her mind – so much that her mother thought she was affected by melancholy.
In spite of this, she returned to the nonconformist church during the week, when the subject of the sermon was Song of Songs 2:16: “My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.”
“The word was accompanied by power,” she said. “He was a good Samaritan for me that day. The Spirit of the Lord shone round about me. Oh, then I saw the Lord Jesus become my husband! He was to me a hiding place from the storm and tempest to which I saw my guilty and polluted nature had exposed me. … I well knew I should meet with hard things from my relations, but I could now pray, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,’ Luke 23:34.”[3]
And hard things she met. Besides their natural dislike for nonconformists, which they considered fanatics, as a high constable Mary’s father had the duty to denounce those who attended nonconformists’ meetings. In spite of this, Mary was able to attend Holcroft’s church secretly. Whenever her father suspected of her attendance, her mother would send a servant to warn her not to return home until her father had gone to bed.
This continued for a year, until a woman mentioned casually to Mary’s mother that she had heard Mary preaching. Most likely, she was referring to Mary’s profession of faith, which she made in front of the congregation. When Mary’s father heard of this, he kicked her out of their home with nothing but the clothes on her back.
At first, she found employment as a governess in a local family. But when the mistress of the house began jealous of the attentions her husband seemed to pay to Mary, she placed Mary with her under-servants, who basically lived on barley bread. When she became ill, the master of the house sent a servant to tell her parents, but when Mary’s father heard his message, he told him to leave or he would shoot him. Mary’s mother managed however to send her a box of clothes, so she could at least have a change.
In spite of her hardships, Mary said she didn’t have “one barren Sabbath.” “I gathered manna on the Sabbath, and it always lasted sweet and good.” And while her interactions with the people at her workplace were often strained, she learned some valuable lessons: “I had frequent opportunities to be convinced that good men are subject to like passions with others. This grieved me, but God did me good by such disappointments, for hereby he brought me more off from the creature to the Creator.”[4]
She later moved to another place where she enjoyed a better treatment, but more troubles rose as persecution against dissenters intensified. Many people were arrested, including Francis Holcroft. Mary’s employer, also a dissenter, decided to take his family to the Netherlands and invited Mary to join them.
Mary’s conflict, at this point, involved her parents, whom she had not seen in seven years. Was she supposed to leave them behind, and possibly never see them again in this life? In obedience to the commandment to honor them, she sent them a letter explaining her plans to leave England in a couple of weeks, “unless their commands were to the contrary.” She explained, however, that if she returned home she should obey them in all things except in matters related to God.
When she didn’t hear back from her parents, she prepared to depart. But before they could reach the harbor, a messenger arrived with a letter from Mary’s father, stating that they could not bear the thought of her leaving England, and that if she returned home she could worship any way she wanted. “Great was my sorrow in parting with my traveling friends,” she said, “but my duty to my parents surmounted all.”[5]
As soon as she entered her home, her mother fainted and her father started to kneel down to ask for her forgiveness. But she knelt instead, offering her obedience. “At supper there was not a morsel eaten but with tears,”[6] she said.
On Sunday, Mary’s father offered her a horse and an escort to take her to church, where Joseph Oddy, Holcroft’s assistant, preached on Psalm 110:3: “Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power.” “Then I could see electing love as the prime cause of all God’s dealings with me,”[7] Mary said.
After this, Mary saw “a great reformation” in her family, including her father’s decision to stop drinking, “which was the forerunner of all his other evils.”[8] Eventually, her three brothers, her mother, and finally her father all followed her in her faith.
She eventually married “the best and tenderest of husbands, a prophet of the Lord indeed,” who left to his children lasting instructions to follow after he died. Mary lived to eighty years– a ripe age at that time. Her last message to her children, relatives, and neighbors was, “Christ saves to the uttermost.”[9]
[1] See Simonetta Carr, “Agnes Beaumont and Her Fateful Ride,” Place for Truth, Jul 30, 2019, https://www.placefortruth.org/blog/agnes-beaumont-and-her-fateful-ride
[2] Samuel James, “Memoirs of Mrs. Mary Churchman,” in An Abstract of the gracious dealings of God with several eminent Christians in their Conversion and Sufferings, (London: E. Palmer and Son, 1842), 132
[3] James, “Memoirs,” 134
[4] James, “Memoirs,” 137
[5] James, “Memoirs,” 140
[6] James, “Memoirs,” 140
[7] James, “Memoirs,” 140
[8] James, “Memoirs,” 140
[9] James, “Memoirs,” 143