1878

Sympathy with sorrowful suffering — ‘‘ Just as Thou wilt” — The mother’s last smile — Called to rest — The home nest stirred up — Clear guidance — ‘‘ Another little step’? — Last days in Leamington — Nieces and nephews — Devonshire visits — The Welsh nest — ‘‘ My study” — The harp piano — More work — The sweep of Jehovah’s pencil — Bible readings — “Take my love”? — Songs in a weary Christmas night.

““T F one member suffer, all the members suffer

with it.” During the winter and spring of 1877-8 our dear second mother was passing through intense suffering. Though most patiently borne, it was very sorrowful to witness. The sympathy of many friends in Leamington, and the devotion of our dear old friend, Miss Nott, gave untold comfort both to the sufferer and to Frances. But with marvellous energy our mother still carried on her Zenana meetings and those of the A. F. W. Society, until at last the diligent worker, the bright and loving friend, the counsellor of many, was called away. Some lines, by our dear father, exactly describe the patience and the desire of his beloved wife:

Just as Thou wilt! Be all to me,
E’en when Thy hand smites heavily!
On brightest day or darkest night,

Whate’er is Thine is right.

Just as Thou wilt! Should anguish fierce
With scorpion stings my body pierce,

I’ll praise Thee if on me Thou ‘’lt shine,
And whisper “I am thine!”

On her last day, and after long unconsciousness, she suddenly recognised Frances, who was kneeling by her. Her smile was startlingly sweet; it was the last.

On Sunday, May 26th, 1878, the end came; for weariness, rest; for suffering, glory; for the loneliness of widowhood, the reunion for ever. In Astley Churchyard she

“Rests where her loved ones rest,
And joins the throng
Of them who see the Lamb
And sing that endless song.”
(W. H. HL)

(Zo Hon. F. Dillon.)

If ever a cup of cold water came at the right moment, it was your overwhelmingly kind letter. It came on the seventh day of poor suffering mother’s dying. The painful tension to me has been excessive; your note was a singular relief, if only for a few minutes, in those days of grief. To witness that strangely dis-

—eeeeeeeeeeSeSeSTSFSFSNSStressing illness has been by “terrible things” answering my eager prayer for more teaching and closer drawing at any cost. So now I expect the “afterwards,” which, as yet, I certainly don’t feel. But it is something to set to one’s own personal seal that God is true to a whole set of promises, with which one could have nothing to do except in very real trial of some sort, and one may as well let Him choose wat sort.

Many arrangements and perplexities now devolved upon us, in the breaking up of our Leamington home. Dear Frances’ unfailing trust, and her assurance that God would guide our steps aright, was to me most calming and sustaining. She was just a daily illustration of “Without Carefulness.” We both needed quiet; and as we remembered our pleasant rambles many years ago on the cliffs beyond the Mumbles, we went there, and our brother joined us. Frances at once wished us to secure united lodgings for our winter home, and in this I entirely agreed, Returning from Wales I went with my dear sister into Herefordshire, staying with some worthy people at the “Highlands” farm, near Titley. The good man was quite deaf, and my sister’s dexterity, in talking on her fingers to him and rapidly transferring on them the sermons at church, was another of her ceaseless ministries, From the high ground of the rabbit warren the

Pa

. ft fcrcee of grec tee fed ah fechnretast &

°7 ‘A: “
rye pltne ff get be
“ANOTHER LITTLE STEP.” 253

view is panoramic. And there stands the fir tree, beneath which my sister had written her poem “Zenith.” It was there she sketched the earthly zeniths, and compared them with the broad sunlight of the true zenith, the true shining —

“.,. That should rise and rise, From glory unto glory, through God’s skies, In strengthening brightness and increasing power; A rising with no setting, for its height Could only culminate in God’s eternal light.”

Those quiet lodgings were restful to us both, and we received such kind attentions from Mr. and Mrs. Mainwaring as ensured our comfort, until we returned to Leamington to break-up our home. The following letters belong to that period.

LEAMINGTON, August 1878.

The Lord has shown me another little step, and of course I have taken it with extreme delight. ‘Take my silver and my gold” now means shipping off all my ornaments (including a jewel cabinet which is really fit for a countess) to the Church Missionary House, where they will be accepted and disposed of for me. I retain only a brooch or two for daily wear, which are memorials of my dear parents; also a locket with the only portrait I have of my niece in heaven, my Evelyn; and her “two rings,” mentioned in ‘‘ Under the Surface.” But these I redeem, so that the whole value goes to the Church Missionary Society. I had no idea I had such a jeweller’s shop, nearly fifty articles are being packed off.

—I don’t think I need tell you I never packed a box with
such pleasure.
(Zo Hon. F. Dillon.)

.. Don’t I recollect you, and the wonderful sermon we had just heard on Revelation iii, 12? I

always read your articles first in Woman’s Work, for oh, / I do like writing which is both fand #, and yours is

exceedingly both. I don’t think there has been a day these three weeks that your name has not been in my mind, so that I was quite startled to see your name at the end of the letter! ‘Reason why”: the editor of Christian Progress has broken down ill; .and, though some of my friends thought it almost sinful of me, I could not refuse his request that I would relieve him for three months as editor. Never, except as an act of sheer mercy and pity, will I be an editor. Letter after letter to various “‘lights,” whom I entreated to illuminate their 14,000 readers on various topics, brought hardly anything but regretful refusals. Everybody is too busy. (I wish people would believe I was; if they did I should get a little more breathing time to do my own work.) May I ask you to contribute a paper on a Bible subject, as Miss Whately and I are both writing a series on practical points, she on the negatives, I on the positives, of Christian life. Otherwise some of your “Dead Flies” or ‘ Polished Corners” series would have done splendidly. Iam so glad you touch the seniors in your paper this month; you are generally hardest on the juniors. I longed for a second paper on unpunctuality, for the seniors. My experiences have been chiefly more of the hindrance their unpunctuality is! for if the mistress is late at meals, and does not see the value of punctuality in general, everybody has to suffer far more than for any juvenile delinquent. I can’t let your letter pass without loving thanks (and I have thanked Him), and just a word of wonder that you should find help from my words. There are few things one feels so unworthy of as even to bear His messages, let alone see His seal set upon them. I can understand others being used, but not my being used. I can only say I am not worthy of the least of His mercies. What you said about His “telling,” and the love revealed in it, was so real and sweet to hear. Is it not one of the many secrets of the Lord, this “telling”?... Last, but not least, my sister and I are both so struck with your thought on “The Lord shall be thy rereward.” Some special circumstances make it just the right word forme. Then of course this sent me to the whole chapter, and that has been food and strength. Yesterday was my last Sunday evening in [what had been] my father’s home. I don’t suppose I shall ever, exactly, have a home again. But I am very happy in the “stirring up” of the nest; every new experience of the “changes and chances” takes one into a new province of the land of promise. And I have my sister, and we are going to live together for the winter in South Wales. She is almost everything tome, I wish I could entirely “tell it out” how good God is to me! Don’t you find there are some things one can say better than write! I can’t write at all, as I would, how good He is, the ink would boil in my pen! Oh for a seraph’s tongue to tell! Well, we shall be able some day. Till then, avd then, I am and shall be Yours lovingly.

On our last Sunday evening in Leamington we went to Trinity Church; and the concluding hymn was my sister’s, “Thou art coming, O my Saviour.” The farewell kindness of many clergy and friends is well remembered. Characteristically, on our last home evening, Frances sent for a number of night-school boys, giving them baskets of books and magazines, maps for their library, a magic lantern, etc. And I don’t think they have forgotten how she gathered them round her piano, singing with them “Tell it out;” and then followed her bright farewell words. For these boys she wrote some simple verses and chorus, “Jesus delivers me now” (unpublished).

Frances spent a great part of the month of August with our dear brother Henry’s widow and family, in Somersetshire. They had bright loving intercourse; deep searchings together with their Bibles; and music, in which all could take a skilful part, solos and choruses resounding the praises of Him they loved, and whom one of them was so soon to see.

May I say that the love of every one of her numerous nieces and nephews was ever accounted by their aunt as one of God’s good gifts, casting refreshing fragrance on her path. What she was to them, no words of mine can tell!

Then came a journey into Devonshire; she writes from Looseleigh, near Plymouth: “I am indeed in clover with these kind friends, and it is very pleasant meeting so many who prayed for me in my illness, though quite a stranger.” My sister addressed a large gathering of ladies in Plymouth, in connection with the Y.W.C.A. Some time after this she wrote out her notes on the subject of her address, “All Things.” (See Appendix.).3 2 +

One happy Sunday was spent with other new friends, in a very Eden of trees, and flowers, and birds, and holy fellowship. A brief visit was also paid to her friends at Newport, of which she said it was “like breathing the air of the land of Beulah.”

Early in October my sister joined me in our Welsh retreat. How I remember her first words to me: “I wanted so to get to you, Marie dear!” She was so very tired, that even the sea air and perfect rest failed to refresh her for some time. Afterwards, she thoroughly enjoyed the walks and scrambles on the cliffs; at low tide springing lightly over boulders to beds of seaweeds, and rocky pools bright with sea anemones, and then calling to me to watch it he -white-crested waves, “the wind dashing them back like confirmation veils.” Or, watching the vessels with all sails up entering the harbour, she would speak of the “abundant entrance into the everlasting king-”

dom.” Delighting in all knowledge, she studied the “Nautical Almanac,” and at the top of the Mumbles lighthouse learnt all that the keeper could tell her. Her tastes were so simple, delighting in wild flowers, and in animals, from the great St. Bernard dogs to her pet kittens.

We made her study cosy with home comforts, and she called it her “workshop.” She arranged her pictures: by the door was her motto “For Jesus’ sake only,” and her Temperance pledge card; besides, were her father’s portrait, and below :it “Sunset on the Lake of Geneva,” “The martyrs in prison,” “Astley Church and Rectory,’ also “The Snow Peaks of the Dent du Midi,” and the “Alpine Geum,” (choice gifts from her friend Helga v. Cramm,) with many home portraits and busts.

Her small but choice library showed the variety of her taste, classical, foreign, poetical, with many works on science, geology, etc.; Humboldt’s and Professor Ritchie’s works (his last gift) she much enjoyed, wen the scant leisure came. (The last books she had in reading were: “The Earth’s Formation on Dynamical Principles,” by A. T. Ritchie; Goodwin’s Works; “The Life and Letters of the Rev. W. Pennefather,” of which she said, “I find such food in that book”; and “The Upward Gaze,” by her friend Agnes Giberne, with which she was delighted.)

May I sketch her at her study table, in her favourite chair from Astley Rectory, older than herself? Her American type-writer was close by, so that she could turn to it from her desk; it was a great relief to her eyes, but its rapid working often told me she was busy when she should have rested. Her desk and table drawers were all methodically arranged for letters from editors, friends, relatives, strangers, matters of business, multitudinous requests, Irish Society work, manuscripts; paper and string in their allotted corners, no litter ever allowed. It was at her study table that she read her Bible by seven o’clock in the summer and eight o’clock in winter; her Hebrew Bible, Greek Testament, and lexicons being at hand. Sometimes, on bitterly cold mornings, I begged that she would read with her feet comfortably to the fire, and received the reply: “But then, Marie, I can’t rule my lines neatly; just see what a find I’ve got! If one only searches, there are such extraordinary things in the Bible!”

Her harp-piano was placed on a stand she contrived by dexterous carpentering. It was at this instrument she composed her last sacred song, “Loving all Along,” and many other melodies to her hymns in “Loyal Responses.” * Often I

* These will probably soon be published by Hutchings and Romer, heard flashes of melody thereon, that came: unbidden amid severer work.

In the south window, its sea view stretching over to Ilfracombe, stood her little table, flowers, and easy chair. Her sofa faced the west window, with the view of Caswell Bay and its rocks, and there the sunsets came, which we:so often watched together.

It may be useful to younger readers to mention how resolutely she refrained from late hours, and frittering talks at night, instead of Bible searching and holy communings. Early rising and early studying were her rule through life, while punctuality, and bright, quick, cheeriness characterized all/She did. She writes: .“‘/2 order’ (1 Cor xiv. 40) is something more than being “dy! something analogous to ‘keeping rank.’”

To a friend, Frances wrote at this time:

I don’t think I ever felt more thankful and glad for anything than on reaching this quiet little nest. God has so graciously and perfectly met our special need. I must pass on to you the last text I have been enjoying, Exodus xv. 13; what can we want more! and it is Thy mercy and strength all along. And then the “holy habitation” of the present, and the future one, from which we shall “go no more out.”

But the “lull in life” never came, even in Wales.

“‘ Rest/” There is none for me apparently. Every post brings more letters from strangers alone than I and my sister can answer. It is nine months since I have had a chance of doing a stroke of new work! But letters were a trouble to Nehemiah as well as to me (Neh. vi. 4), and I must try to make it always work for my King.

It may seem strange that she should have had so to wear her strength away; and the following requests, which came by one post, will show what labour was required in answering them all.

Request for contribution to Lrish Church Advocate. Hymns for special New Year services wanted. To write cards suitable for mourners. For set of six more “Marching Orders.” Request for poems to illustrate six pictures. For prayer, sympathy and counsel (two sheets crossed). Two sheets from a septuagenarian, requiring thought. Request to write a book suitable for Unitarians. Sundry inquiries and ‘apologies from one who had been printing her verses with another author’s name. Request to reprint’an article, with four explanatory enclosures. Also to revise a proof and add my opinion. - To revise many sheets of musical manuscripts. - Three requests to supply cards for bazaars. Advice wanted how to get articles inserted in magazines. To recommend pupils. .To promote a new magazine. To give opinion on an oratorio. Some long poems in manuscript to revise and advise thereon. Besides packets of leaflets and cards wanted.

In addition to all this, musical proofs reached her almost daily, which often required many hours of careful revision and thought; and those accustomed to the sight of the Fzveside Almanack will remember how “the sayings of the Lord Jesus” had there been arranged by her for the year which was her last. All this absorbed an amount of time which can scarcely now be realized; and yet she always wrote pleasantly and cheerily, and many a word of refreshment came from that wearied hand. Unasked, she undertook to chapterize the manuscript of “Never Say Die.”* Writing to S.G. P., she says:

Time spent on it is overpaid; it brings to me all the sweetness and freshness of the old, old story. I keep reading it for myself. My sister agrees with me that the book is exceptional, and in fact unique; and I do trust that you may have, or rather that the Master may have, a very harvest of souls from its circulation.

To its author, when working among the mourners at the Nant-y-glo colliery, she writes:

I enclose you a wee bit more, it has been quite a weight on my mind that I could not do more to help such terrible need. I was pledged to other collections, and my own purse is not unfathomable. So I was driven to do at last what I had much better have done at first, viz. pray that the Lord would show me some

* “Never Say Die.” By S. G. Prout. Nisbet & Co.

way of sending a /i/#/e, and of course two or three ways flashed into my mind. May the good Lord give you many souls for your hire, for this service.

(Zo Cecilia.)
THE MumBLEs, October 1878.
DEAR CECI, —

I have often found that the greater the diflien ities, the greater the eins present help”; and of course Jesus will be “the same” to you, dear Ceci.

If ever one had gracious guidance in one’s life it is now; the place is so precisely what we wanted, a regular case of Philippians iv. 19. I was terribly tired and used up when I got here, but am ever so much better already, though the “rest” has at present been only as to no “imterviews.”... Must hand on to you and Edith the text which more than any other has struck me in our readings lately; I have /ved on it.

Led forth Nes Thy mercy.
Guided In Thy strength.

What would one have more! And then:

Redemption past.
Holy habitation present: Ps. xci. 9.

future.

Exodus xv. 13. y

”?”

“Sweet is Thy mercy,” and “great is Thy mercy toward me.” On Sunday look at Exodus xxxil, 29, and connect with John vi. 53-55. Think of “‘¢ose things” and “eat” them: living om, and satisfied with, Christ’s precious body and blood. “Eat, O friends!”

Your loving Aunt,
(Zo an American Friend.)

October 28, 1878.
My-pEAr Mrs. BrunoT, —

I have not forgotten that I have owed you a letter for a long time. And If owe one to and Mrs. McCready.’ Now would you be so very kind as to forward this letter to them, and will they be so very kind as to accept it instead of separate letters.

Most graciously God strengthened my health poner fully, as the need deepened during the long and terrible suffering of my poor dear mother, a marked instance of “as thy day.” Still, of course, the strain on mind and body has been very great, both for my dear elder sister Maria and myself.

Next followed all that is involved in a final break up of home, and overlooking the accumulations of half a century — all my precious father’s books, papers, etc. The beginning of this month my dear sister and I came here, and settled into snug lodgings on the ridge of the western horn of Swansea Bay (six miles from Swansea).

I simply could not live, I think, anywhere within hail of London, nor much longer in any such lively place as Leamington. So I have got away, now, well out of everybody’s reach! Iam trying, trying, trying, in a sort of Tantalian hopelessness, to overtake the letters that pour in on me, and to fulfil such requests as I have already promised. But, very seriously, I feel that unless I draw a line hard and fast, and refuse everybody all round all ‘that is asked me to do, until I have cleared up the said promises and secured a little rest, I shall get mentally as

- well as bodily exhausted. So, dear friend, I must decline to write what you ask for; it is always pain to me to say “no,” and I might keep a secretary only to write these refusals. That is all the outside. As for under the surface, of course it is the old story of marvels of love and faithfulness, from microscopically minute to grandly magnificent, and sometimes the minutest seem the most magnificent. I don’t think all the previous years, put together, equal this last twelve months for these daily miracles of love. Only, most of them, and the most wonderful, are from special circumstances, such as have to remain among the secrets between one’s own soul and tevever “eater Master,..’. 2 It seems to me that God has done for me more than He promised, not only supplying all my need, but all my notions.

Our present abode suits us so perfectly in all manner of little ways, that I tell our gracious Father I really don’t know how to thank Him enough for it.... HowTI should like to meet my American friends! But I dare not come over. I should be sick all the way, and only be a trouble to you; but, “chere shall be no more sea!”

{77 S.C. PF)

“Blessed is he that considereth the poor, the Lord shall deliver him in the time of trouble.” So, dear friend, “thou art, now, the blessed of the Lord.” Vow, while I am writing and when you are reading the words, “now” the “blessed” of Jehovah. That word “blessed” seems to me like a grand outline, traced with one sweep of Jehovah’s mighty pencil; and who shall say what the filling up shall be? Because, you see, it is not our idea of “blessed,” but God’s own idea of it that will fill it up. I think, sometimes, Christian workers do not take the great comfort for themselves that the good Lord means and has provided for them; there is a sort of shrinking from presuming to appropriate the conditional character connected with a promise, even when it is quite distinctly applicable; and I regard this as a device of the enemy to contrive to withhold from them the whole glorious comfort which belongs to them. He puts it as a sort of humility; and I think it must grieve our dear Master to have His kindness thus frustrated. So, somehow, I am exceedingly anxious to-day that you should just revel in the grand definiteness, and the still grander zzdefiniteness, of this word, which is yours at this moment. If-words mean anything, you have been considering the poor; and so, if words mean anything, you are “blessed.” I have been praying that the Lord would water your own soul very abundantly in the midst of your watering, that you may find more and more “fresh springs” in Himself, and may receive every day His own anointing with “fresh oil” for your service. You are treading peculiarly closely in the plain footsteps of the Master, your “own Master’; and you have not even to wait for His sure ‘ Come, ye blessed,” you have the fore-echo of it now. May He. Himself whisper it into your heart in the midst of your work, which “He is not unrighteous to forget.” May I give you another thought? He is sending you into the places whither He Himself will come: Luke x. 1. You go into one of these places of suffering, because Jesus Himself will come there, come with His saving power or His pitying love.

The cottagers around us soon won my sister’s interest and regard, and she invited them to a Bible reading in our house (I may say that she never began any work of this kind without the Vicar’s consent).* She wrote to ask “for a real great blessing on an open Bible class which I am starting this evening. I don’t know who will come, few or many; but I want God’s real converting grace poured out, and I want to be enabled so to speak of Jesus that souls may be

-won to Him. There is the centre; how it just goes through one, when one touches upon His own beloved name. And how we do want Him to be understood and loved.”

(Zo -)

I have just been preparing for my next Bible reading. You thought I used a great many texts in my Bible notes, but it is my way of work. I very seldom run on a dozen lines in any book without embodying a text. I don’t see how one can put too large a proportion of God’s own words among our own. He never said our: words should not return void. Besides, I have got into the way of it. I don’t want to be a spider spinning out

* T may also add (to remove misapprehension) that this work was not in or connected with the town of Swansea, where she only once took the Y. W. C. A. meeting, but in the village of Newton, six miles from that town.

of myself! I am so interested in my Bible class. I have just been telling one of them I don’t wish to lead them a nice interesting walk all round the walls of the city of refuge, and get them to think what a charming place it is; I want to give them a good hard push inside.

The room. in which the class was held was always full, She began at once with a subject selected from the Christzan Progress chapter for the day, asking all who came to read the intervening chapters by the next meeting, and thus ensuring that study of God’s word she so eagerly sought to encourage. She told me that illustrations seemed to overflow upon her when speaking, and the reality of her words certainly thrilled her hearers. The last evening, she was so exhausted that I persuaded her to give up her class, and not to attempt larger meetings in the Newton schoolroom, which had been thought of.

On the fourth anniversary of December 2nd,
1873, my dear sister had written:

It was a peculiarly trying day as to other things; but, as I was remembering that blessed day, and all the blessedness of the way ever since, and the words in Jeremiah ii. 2, I cannot tell you the sweetness of it and the assurance that He was indeed remembering me. “The love of thine espousals.” Do look at the verse, for it applies just as much to you, dear H — — , as to me.

Only, it is but very rarely He gives me such a vividly felt message of love. I think it was that He saw I was in special need of it; it was just like Him to send it.

The hymn in “Loyal Responses,” “My Lord, dost Thou remember me?” bears the same date.

On the fifth and last anniversary, December
2nd, 1878, Frances writes.

(70 J. °7. WW.)

I had a great time early this morning, renewing the never regretted consecration. I seemed led to run over the “Take my life,” and could bless Him verse by verse for having led me on to much more definite consecration than even when I wrote it, voice, gold, intellect, etc. But the eleventh couplet, ‘ love,” — that has been unconsciously not filled up. Somehow,’ I felt mystified and out of my depth here: it was a simple and definite thing to be done, to settle the voice, or silver and gold! but “love”? I have to love others, and I do; and I’ve not a small treasure of it, and even loving zz Him does not quite meet the inner difficulty. Of course, I told Him all that was in my heart as far down as ever I knew it myself, and that He knew the rest, and so I could only hand over the whole concern to Him, and implore. Him to make it clear and definite. I don’t see much clearer, or feel much different; but I have said intensely this morning, “Take my love,” and He knows I have. So I did not fidget any more, or worry the Master any more about it. I shall just go forward and expect Him to fill it up, and let my life from this day answer really to that couplet. The worst part tomeis. that I don’t in practice prove my love to Him, by delight in much and long communion with Him; hands and head seem so full of “other things,” (which yet are His given work,) that “heart” seems not “free to serve” in fresh and vivid love.

Swiftly were her words to be realized;

“For He hath met my longing

With word of golden tone,

That I shall serve for ever
Himself, Himself alone.

Shall serve Him, and for ever;
O hope most sure, most fair!

The perfect love outpouring
In perfect service there!”

From my notebook:

December 17, 1878. The sun was shining in our breakfast room, when Frances said: “It is a great mercy the sunshine of heaven is veiled from our sight, or we should be just unfit for earthly duties. I think there is a gravitation of the soul to life, as there is in bodies to the earth. It’s delightful being here; it was curious the strong impression I had to come, I think God gave me the wish, and it has turned out all right. It is like what poor Howells said to me on the cliffs yesterday. I met him in his threadbare coat, and he told me how good the Lord was to him, and then, as if talking to Him not to me, he said, ‘He’s been particularly good to me!’”

: “That splendid sovereign will of our God, made up of

infinite love and infinite wisdom, nothing seems out of perspective when this is our standpoint; all His words and all His ways then stand out, harmonized and beautiful.”

‘Perhaps in heaven we shall be permitted to remember all the way the Lord led us, and to recall distinctly all the puzzling parts of His guidance and providence, so to see glory reflected dack from them, as it were, upon ’ His wonderful wisdom.”

(Zo 3)

December 16, 1878.

DEAREST H °

You regularly overwhelm me with such kindness. Tell Mr. Bullock I don’t deserve the /irestde annuals and Tablets, one bit. The beautiful shawl will be such a comfort.... Tell the dearejuniors I shall imagine there is a little packet of love in the top of each finger of the delightful gloves.... The Memoir of Mr. Pennefather will always be a treasure to me. Do you see that he was a pledged supporter of the Irish Society? I was charmed when I saw that! I know people wonder why I am so warm about it, but you see I am in first-rate company!

Very early on her last Christmas morning she awoke in severe pain, and was very ill for some days. But she said cheerily: “I really have had such songs given me in the night, and some Christmas verses for next year came so easily.”

$$

An hour after: “Oh, Marie; I’ve done a half-day’s work already, a whole set of mottoes; it seemed poured into me.” These she named “Christmas Sunshine,” and “Love and Light for the New Year.” “You can’t think the enjoyment it is to me to produce anything new. What books I should write if I had: time! I wonder if I shall always be so pressed with other things; but never mind, it is all ‘service”” And then she spoke of her own mother and the little prayer she taught her: “‘O Lord, prepare me for all Thou art preparing for me’; that has been my life prayer.” Many days of pain and weakness followed, and the doctor wished her to have perfect rest. I was most thankful to write all the letters I could for her now, and at other times. Dear wearied sister! once she said: “I do hope the angels will have orders to let me alone a bit, when I first get to heaven!”