COOL STUFF FROM LIBRARY BOOKS, Entry #6: Ethan Allen's Daughter

The following illustration about Revolutionary war hero, farmer and Patriot Ethan Allen (1738-1789) is taken from a book simply called Anecdotes, first published in 1838. This little anonymous booklet was composed to teach about the Christian life through a series of memorable vignettes.  The haunting example copied for you here is a sobering and unforgettable anecdote, to say the very least!  When push comes to shove, it's all about an inevitable and individual eternal destiny.

 Ethan Allen's Daughter

In the United States of America, infidelity found an active champion in the well-known Colonel Ethan Allen, who made an open profession of his disbelief in revealing religion. It happened that a daughter of the colonel's, to whom he was very much attached, fell sick. During the progress of her illness, Dr. Elliot was one day dining with the colonel, and, after having adjourned to the colonel's library, some infidel and deistical publications were introduced by the colonel to the doctor's notice. While they were occupied in looking at them, a servant came to announce to the colonel that an alarming change had taken place in his daughter and that his presence was required in her bed-room. Thither he went, accompanied by Dr. ElIiot. As he approached her bedside, she took his hand and said, 

"Father, I feel that my end is drawing near. Tell me, I entreat you, am I to believe what you have taught me, or what I have learned from my mother?" 

Her mother was a sound and sincere Christian, and had spared no opportunity of instilling Christian truths into the mind of her child. The father paused for a moment; he fixed his eyes on his dying child; his countenance changed, his frame was observed to be convulsed to its very centre; while his quivering lips could scarce give utterance to the words, 

"Believe, my child, what your mother has taught you."