BATS IN THE BELLE-FRY
During the Civil War,
Ida Mayfield, a beautiful belle from Louisiana, became the toast of New York
society. She was among the most beautiful, well-bred women in the city, and
married to Ben Wood, a newspaper magnate and congressman. She wore the finest gowns and jewels,
danced with the Prince of Wales, was presented to Empress Eugenie of Austria,
and entertained President Cleveland.
Then, during the financial panic of 1907, she disappeared without a
trace.
But Ida Mayfield was a
hoax. You see, Ida Mayfield was
really Ellen Walsh, the penniless daughter of an immigrant textile worker,
using a borrowed dress, the name of a respected Louisiana family, and her innate
charm. Her husband, Ben Wood,
never knew her real identity.
Ida Mayfield, or Ellen
Walsh, disappeared from the scene for several years. In 1931, she was found blind, deaf and shrunken. She was 94 years old, and living in a dingy
New York hotel room, wearing a “dress” made only of two hotel towels pinned
together. Her room was a mess of
yellowed newspapers, letters and boxes, all scattered in disarray. She was judged incompetent and was made
a ward of the court.
However, when they
opened the boxes, they found securities worth hundreds of thousands of
dollars. A diamond and emerald
necklace was hidden in a box of crackers.
And to top it off, fifty $10,000 dollar bills were contained inside a
pouch tied around her waist. When
collectors took this from her, she died.
There is a record of a young lady who lived in Babylon that went by the name of Hadassah. Like Ida Mayfield, Haddasah entertained royalty. She wore the finest gowns and jewels. She had seven personal palace maids. She received private beauty treatments that could be afforded by only the wealthiest of society. She ate only the most exquisite of meals. And, like Ida Mayfield, she was not being forthright concerning her true identity.
Like Ida Mayfield, she was not really the daughter of royalty or wealth, but unlike Ida Mayfield, she was not a hoax. And unlike Ida Mayfield, she did not disappear when things started shaking. Instead, she understood that she was "come to the kingdom for such a time as this." She realized it was her time to shine! So she revealed to her true identity to her husband and saved the lives of her uncle and rest of the Jews in the kingdom.
Like Esther, it is imperative that the church today understand that we have "come to the kingdom for such a time as this." We don't need to hide our identity. Ellen Walsh hid her identity because she was ashamed and she was living a lie. Esther hid her identity at the request of her uncle, who feared she would be turned away at best and killed at worst. Today, the church needs to boldly proclaim her identity with Jesus Christ. Our freedom from sin was purchased by His blood.
