1872–1874
‘The Right Way” — Snowdon — Evenings at Harlech — Jesus our Reality — Switzerland once more — Ascent to the Grands Mulets — Glissade peril and escape — Active service —
Winterdyne — Bright sunshine — Full surrender — 1 John i. 7 — Definitive standpoint — Chimes in the night of ‘‘ Ever, only, all for Thee” — No cheque — Songs, not sighs — How ‘‘ Golden harps,”’ ‘‘ Tell it out,” etc., came — Wayside enjoyments.
N the summer of 1872 we enjoyed a few
weeks’ tour together in North Wales, the change being desirable for my dear sister, who immediately recovered her health and buoyancy. She writes from Barmouth, July 6, 1872:
DEAR G — — ,
Surely “The Right Way” will be the shining inscription on every Christian’s home path at last; all will be alike in this one thing, however diverse in all else.... We have been two nights at Dolgelly; it is lovely, and so different in character, that it no more suffers after Switzerland than a forget-me-not beside a rose.: My sister has the scent of a Red Indian for good id widow women and people needing consolation....
P.S. — Isaiah xlviii. 17: do suck all the honey out of this full and sweet text..
(70 Ze)
PEN-Y-GURYD, /zly 16.
- «It seems very natural to scribble to you, after our Swiss experiences last summer. I leave circulars and generalities to Maria. I see by my little register that I have received above 600 letters between January and July 1st. It would be impossible, unless you were with me day by day, to give you a notion of the unaccountable variety of things that people will persist in writing to me about.
1 think Wales will put me out of conceit of Switzerland! One gets so very much beauty and enjoyment with so much less expense or fatigue. This year, too, I had such a craving for rest rather than for exertion, that our plan suits me far better. I intensely enjoyed the feeling of rest and leisure at Harlech, without having to “do” any places next day ov next! I am glad you were at the Mildmay Conference. I did so want to go, but dear mother so strongly advised me zof that I thought it clear duty to refrain. I think the very thing which would be pleasure and help to you would be a serious spiritual drawback to me, meeting those you know or could speak to. The human element, however delightful, would distract and hinder me from meeting “Jesus only.” How all these differences of need and desire will be overflowed in the glorious assembly above! I do like to think of that. I prayed that Wales might be my conference, and that I might not miss a blessing; and in some degree it has been answered, for I have been rather specially happy. I seemed to have arrears of prayer, things I wanted as it were to talk over and talk out with God, and especially the three last evenings at Harlech, when I went out alone for the purpose; I found two or three hours none too long for uninterrupted communion of this kind..
I am finishing this at the top of Snowdon; the ascents are all so easy; no need of ponies or guides when we can walk twelve to fifteen miles. We shall run down from this the Llanberis side, and camp for a week, half way down, with one of my sister’s charming old women.
I have had such interesting openings for work the last few weeks, some only beginnings, others I trust real conversions; I tell my sister what I could not write. So He gives us different work to do, but all His work.
We must return from Wales to be present at the wedding of my dear niece, Miriam Crane, the end of July.
°. °
From Moel Siabod we had series of glimpses of the sunny world below, and magnificent veilings and unveilings of Snowdon, soft white wreaths folding and unfolding among the massive heights. In Llyn Dinas I saw an effect quite new tome. The slanting sunlight took the ripples at just such an angle that an exquisite gold network, waving and gleaming upon the‘dark brown stones, was produced, in some places concentrating like a golden web, in others like open trellis work. The harmony of colour, the rich warm brown of the stones with the intense gold, was not a combination we should have struck out. My favourite mountain verse is; ‘Unto Thee, O Lord, do we give thanks, for that Thy name is near Thy wondrous works declare.”
Thoughts from various Letters, 1873.
“How I should like to be with you now! it would be so nice to throw one little flower among your thorns. However, I think He would send me, impossible as it seems, if really best; so, as I am not sent, I know it is better so.”
“So your fiery trial is still unextinguished. But what if it be but His beacon light on your upward path!”
“This is bitter desolation for you, so I send you ‘I will not leave you comfortless,’ It was a greater loss than any, which the disciples were to endure, His own personal presence withdrawn. Can He have changed since He spoke those loving words? What a test of the disciples’ faith! What could make up for this greatest loss of all? How could He go away, and yet not leave them comfortless? You are called now to the same sort of trial of faith; can you not trust the truth and love of the Master who sends it? And then ‘I will come to you.’ You know something of ow He can ‘come,’ but do you think you have reached the end of His gracious comings?”
“It is a question whether a really thoughtful mind could possibly yield the homage of its entire being to a God whom it could understand and fathom, ‘The instinct of such a mind would revolt from it.”
“«¢ As for thee, the Lord thy God has not suffered thee to do so.’ What a stepping stone! We give thanks, often with a tearful doubtful voice, for our spiritual mercies fosifive; but what an almost infinite field there is for mercies negative! We cannot even imagine all that God has suffered us zot to do, xot to be.”
“... Did you ever hear of any one being very much used for Christ who did not have some sfecial waiting time, some complete wfsef of all his or her plans first; from St. Paul’s being sent off into the desert of Arabia for three years, when he must have been boiling over with the glad tidings, down to the present day? You were looking forward to tell about trusting Jesus in Syria; now He says, ‘I want you to show what it is to trust Me, without waiting for Syria.’ Even if you never say one word, it will be seen your trust is a reality, because Jesus is a Reality.
‘‘My own case is far less severe, but the same in principle, that when I thought the door was flung open for me to go with a bound into literary work, it is opposed, and doctor steps in and says simply ‘ Never! She must choose between writing and living, she can’t do both.’ That was in 1860. Then I came out of the shell with ‘Ministry of Song,’ in 1869, and saw the evident wisdom of having been kept nine years waiting in the shade.
“God’s love being unchangeable, He is just as loving when we do not see or feel His love. Also His sovereignty and His love are co-equal and universal; so He withholds the enjoyment and conscious progress, because He knows best what will really ripen and further His work in us.”
“¢Ve shall be gathered one by one, O ye children of Israel.’ (Isa. xxvii. 12.) Hence, individual love and care, personal calling and guidance. Yet this is only for the wilderness journey, for the ‘one by one’ will blossom at last into a grand answer to His prayer, ‘that they all may de one,’ no longer ‘one dy one.’”
“Tired, disappointed, and depressed, I thought of Matthew xi. 28, ‘Come unto Me all ye that labour,’ but felt quite tantalized at it because ‘labour’ did not apply to me. I took up my Greek Testament and Lexicon, and to my delight saw that the very same word is used in John iv. 6, ‘Jesus therefore being wearted. Just human, natural, physical fatigue! So I didn’t see why I should not take the comfort of it, and I did not trouble to think, but He let the words rest me altogether.”
In the summer of 1873 Frances accompanied her friends Mr. and Mrs. Snepp and their daughter Emily to Switzerland.
She describes her ascent to the Grands Mulets on Mont Blanc, arriving at its desolate rocks in the midst of an ocean of snow.
We had some lovely effects, such as I had never seen before, in passing the colossal ice blocks on the shady side, the sun behind them touching the edges with a sort of transparent aureole, and shining through a glittering drip from the overhanging ones.
On their descent from Mont Blanc, Frances’ delight in glissading led to most perilous and imminent danger, from which Mr. Snepp’s instantaneous presence of mind saved her life and also the life of one of the guides. She writes:
They would not unrope me; when we got to Pierre a 1’Echelle, I was so enjoying my glissades, and presently thought we were come to a sufficiently easy part to go carelessly, whereupon I slipped, and Payot the guide, who. was next to me, totally lost himself too. Below us was a dark abyss; we both started a decidedly too rapid spin down a very steep incline to sheer precipice below; when, instantaneously, Mr. S. did the only possible thing which could have saved all four of us, flung himself right on his back with his heels in the snow, the orthodox thing to do if only any one has the presence of mind to do it. Thus he was enabled to bear the immense strain on the rope, and check our impetus; thank God, we soon recovered our footing. After this I was unroped, which I greatly prefer, it is so hampering, and had some splendid glissades alone, and we returned to Chamounix in two hours less than the regulation time.
Returning from Switzerland to Oakhampton, our dear mother being at the seaside, Frances at once began most diligent work. Her active service had no intervals of dreamy enjoyment; but cottage visitations, and four Bible classes weekly, attended with unwearied exertions, at last culminated in crowded attendances in the servants’ hall. Soon after this, she assisted in preparatory work for a Mission at Bewdley. With the late
Vicar’s consent, the Rev. G. Everard had promised to come; but the fever in his family and the death of his dear children frustrated this arrangement, and the Rev. C. B. Snepp undertook all the services. My sister, though very fragile, gave much help in the choir and other opportunities for work.
The family at Winterdyne will ever have reason to thank God for Frances’ visit, though no words here may tell of its lasting influence and blessed results.
During a Mission Week at Liverpool she was
again at work.
(Zo Margaret W.)
EccLeston HALL, October 23, 1873.
To think of my actually being here! J is so good to me, nursing me after my Liverpool work, which rather used meup. I had a young women’s meeting on Wednesday, was at work all Thursday morning; and intended to make sure of an hour’s very needful rest, and preparation for my hymn meeting, when some callers came who had, I trust, really got a blessing the night before. I am hardly as much used up as I feared, after five days’ incessant work, but it is long since I had any real rest.,
I have just been writing my request for praise. What can I do? I ca’nt curtail it! Oh, how I wish I could have come over to your praise meeting, and just tried to tell you all how gracious, and faithful, and ear, God has been all this summer! If I kept a diary it would be just a record of answers to prayer, and such great ones too! I wish you would tell the members of the Y. W. C. A., because they would be encouraged to hear how wonderfully God has answered one of their members, and He is the same God, rich to all that callupon Him....
We now teach a period in the life of dear
Frances that was characterized by surpassing
blessing to her soul. The year 1873 was drawing
to a close, and she was again visiting at
Winterdyne.
One day she received ina letter from N a tiny book with the title “All for Jesus.” She read it carefully. Its contents arrested her attention. It set forth a fulness of Christian experience and blessing exceeding that to which she had as yet attained. She was gratefully conscious of having for many years loved the Lord and delighted in His service; but there was in her experience a falling short of the standard, not so much of a holy
walk and conversation, as of uniform brightness and continuous enjoyment in the Divine life. “All for Jesus” she found went straight to this point of the need and longing of her soul. Writing in reply to the author of the little book, she said: “I do so long for deeper and fuller teaching in my own heart. ‘All for Jesus’ has touched me very much.
I know I love Jesus, and there are times when I feel such intensity of love to Him that I have not words to describe it. I rejoice, too, in
Him as my ‘ Master’ and ‘Sovereign,’ but I want to come nearer still, to have the full realization of John xiv. 21, and to know ‘the power of His resurrection,’ even if it be with the fellowship of His sufferings. And all this, not exactly for my own joy alone, but for others.... So I want Jesus to speak to me, to say ‘many things’ to me, that I may speak for Him to others with real power. It is not knowing doctrine, but dezng with Him, which will give this.”
God did not leave her long in this state of mind. He Himself had shown her that there were “regions beyond” of blessed experience and service; had kindled in her very soul the intense desire to go forward and possess them; and now, in His own grace and love, He took her by the hand, and led her into the goodly land. A few words from her correspondent on the power of Jesus to keep those who abide in Him from falling, and on the continually present power of His blood (“the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin,’ *) were used by the Master in effecting this. Very joyously she replied: “J see tt all, and I HAVE the blessing.”
The “sunless ravines” were now for ever passed, and henceforth her peace and joy flowed onwards,
* 1 Johni, 7.
deepening and widening under the teaching of God the Holy Ghost. The blessing she had received had (to use her own words) “lifted her whole life into sunshine, of which all she had previously experienced was but as pale and passing April gleams, compared with the fulness of summer glory.”
The practical effect of this was most evident in her daily, true-hearted, whole-hearted, service for her King, and also in the increased joyousness of the unswerving obedience of her home life, the surest test of all.
To the reality of this, I do most willingly and fully testify. Some time afterwards, in answer to my question, when we were talking quietly together, Frances said: “Yes, it was on Advent Sunday, December 2nd, 1873, I first saw clearly the blessedness of true consecration. I saw it as a flash of electric light, and what you see you can ’ never wzsee. There must be full surrender before there can be full blessedness. God admits you by the one into the other. He Himself showed me all this most clearly. You know how singularly I have been withheld from attending all conventions and conferences; man’s teaching has, consequently, had but little to do with it. First, I was shown that ‘the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin,’ and then it was made plain to me that He who had thus cleansed me had power to keep me clean; so I just utterly yielded myself to Him, and utterly trusted Him to keep me.”
I replied that “it seemed to me, if we did thus yield ourselves to the Lord, we could not take ourselves back again, any more than the Levitical sacrifices, once accepted by the priest, were returned by him to the offerer.”
“Ves,” she rejoined, “just so. Still, I see there can be the renewal of the surrender, as in our Communion Service, where we say: ‘ And here we offer and present unto Thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies.’ And there may also be a fuller surrender, even long after a surrender has once, or many times before, been made. And then as to sanctification: that it is the work of the Holy Spirit, and progressive, is the very thing I see and rejoice in. He has brought me into the ‘highway of holiness,’ up which I trust every day to progress, continually pressing forward, led by the Spirit of God. And I do indeed find that with it comes a happy trusting, not only in all great matters, but in all the little things also, so that I cannot say ‘so and so worries me.’”
Some months afterwards I received the following letter on the same subject:
Dearest MaAria, — Certainly your letters have filled me with
gladness and thanksgiving. Loving thanks to Mr. Shaw
for his message.
I have long wanted to explain to you and others in writing (which is easier to me to be cear in, than in conversation, with its natural interruptions) what I see as to the subject which to me was undoubtedly the portal into ~, happy life. As to “perfectionism” or “sinlessness,”
/ Lhave all along, and over and over again, said I never did, and do not, hold either. “Sinlessness” belongs only to Christ now, and to our glorified state in heaven. I believe it to be not merely an impossibility on earth, but an actual contradiction of our very being, which cannot be “sinless” till the resurrection change has passed
/ upon us. But being kept from falling, kept from sins, is
quite another thing, and the Bible seems to teem with commands and promises about it. First, however, I would distinctly state, that it is o#/y as and while a soul is under the full power of the blood of Christ that it can be cleansed from all sin; that one moment’s withdrawal from that power, and it is again actively lbecause really sinning; and that it is omy as, and while, kept by the power of God Himself that we are not sinning against Him; one instant of standing alone is certain fall! But,- (premising that,) have we not been limiting the cleansing power of the precious blood when applied by the Holy Spirit, and also the keeping power of our God? Have we not been limiting 1 John i, 7, by practically making it refer only to “the remission of sins that are past,” instead of taking the grand simplicity of “cleanseth us from ai/7 sin”? “All” is all; and as we may trust Him to cleanse from the stain of past sins, so we may trust Him to cleanse from all present defilement; yes, a///
Fe nen ee If not, we take away from this most precious promise, and, by refusing to take it in its fulness, lose the fulness of its application and power. Then we limit God’s power
to “keep”; we look at our frailty more than at His omni-
potence. Where is the line to be drawn, beyond which He is mot “able”? The very Aeeping implies total helplessness without it, and the very cleansing most distinctly implies defilement without it. It was that one word “cleanseth” which opened the door of a very glory of hope and joy tome. I had never seen the force of the tense before, a continual present, always a present tense, not a present which the next moment becomes a past. It goes on cleansing, and I have no words to tell how my heart rejoices in it. Not a coming to be cleansed in the fountain only, but a remaining in the fountain, so that it may and can go on cleansing.
Why should we pare down the commands and promises of Gad to the level of what we have hitherto experienced of what God is “able to do,” or even of what we have thought He might be able to do for us? Why not receive God’s promises, nothing doubting, just as they stand? “Take the shield of faith, whereby ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked”; * He is able to make @// grace abound toward you, that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things”; and so on, through whole constellations of promises, which surely mean really and fully what they say.
One arrives at the same thing, starting almost from anywhere. Take Philippians iv. 19, “‘ yourneed”; well, what is my great need and craving of soul? Surely it is now, (having been justified by faith, and having assurance of salvation,) to be made holy by the continual sanctifying
K power of God’s Spirit; to be kept from grieving the Lord Jesus; to be kept from thinking or doing whatever is not accordant with His holy will. Oh what a need is this! And it is said ‘“‘ He sha//7 supply all need”; now, shall we turn round and say “all” does not mean quite all? Both as to the commands and the promises, it seems to me that anything short of believing them as ¢hey stand is but another form of “yea, hath God said?”
Thus accepting, in simple and unquestioning faith, God’s commands and promises, one seems to be at once brought into intensified views of everything. Never, oh never before, did sin seem so hateful, so really “intolerable,” nor watchfulness so necessary, and a keenness and uninterruptedness of watchfulness too, beyond what one ever thought of, only somehow different, not a distressed sort but a happy sort. It is the watchfulness of a sentinel when fis captain is standing by him on the ramparts, when his eye is more than ever on the alert for any sign of the approaching enemy, because he knows they can only approach to be defeated. ‘Then, too, the “all for Jesus” comes in; one sees there is no half way, it must be absolutely a yielded up, because the least unyielded or doubtful point is sin, let.alone the great fact of owing all to Him. And one cannot, dare not,
temporize with sin. .I know, and have found, that even a momentary hesitation about yielding, or obeying, or trusting and believing, vitiates all, the communion is
broken, the joy vanished; only, thank God, this never ‘need continue even five minutes, faith may plunge
instantly into “the fountain open for sin and uncleanness,” and again find its power to cleanse and restore.
Then one wants to have more and more light; one does not shrink from painful discoveries of evil, because one so wants to have the unknown depths of it cleansed as well as what comes to the surface. ‘Cleanse me ¢hroughly from my sin;” and one prays to be shown this. But so far as one does see, one must “put away sin” and obey entirely; and here again His power is our resource, enabling us to do what without it we could not do.
One of the intensest moments of my life was when I saw the force of that word “cleanseth.” The utterly unexpected and altogether unimagined sense of its fulfilment to me, on simply believing it in its fulness, was just indescribable. I expected nothing like it short of heaven. I am so thankful that, in the whole matter, there was as little human instrumentality as well could be, for certainly two sentences in letters from a total stranger were little. I say only two sentences, for nothing else seemed to make much difference to me; all the rest was, I am sure, God’s own direct teaching. And you know I had read no books and attended no meetings or conferences! Iamso conscious of His direct teaching and guidance, through His word and Spirit, in the matter that I cannot think I can ever unsee it again. I have waited many months before writing this, so it is no new and untested. theory to me; in fact, experience came before theory and is more to me than any theory. But, understand me, it is “not as though Z had already attained, either were already perfect; but I follow after, I press toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
Frances wrote to her friend J — — K — — -:
Isend you my own New Year’s motto and message.
It is a wonderful word, “from glory unto glory.” May we more and more claim and realize all that is folded up in it. I know you have prayed for me, so I must tell you that your prayers are answered. 1873 has been a year of unprecedented blessing to me. I think you will see this in “From Glory unto Glory.” So now will you join me in’ praise. .°. 2S
This hymn was written at Winterdyne, and Mr. Shaw well remembers Frances bringing it and reading it to him, saying, “There! I could not have written this before.’ And as she stood, even in the twilight, the sunny radiance of her countenance was sealing her words:
“The fulness of His blessing encompasseth our way; The fulness of His promises crowns every brightening day; The fulness of His glory is beaming from above, While more and more we realize the fulness of His love.”
Every visit seemed now to open doors for her loving words, and she longed for whole households to taste with her of the goodness of the Lord. One extract must be as it were a glimpse of many others.
Perhaps you will be interested to know the origin of the consecration hymn, “Take my life.” I went for a little visit of five days. There were ten persons in the house, some unconverted and long prayed for, some converted but not rejoicing Christians. He gave me the prayer, “Lord, give me all in this house!” And He just did, Before I left the house every one had got a blessing, The last night of my visit I was too happy to sleep, and passed most of the night in praise and renewal of my own consecration, and these little couplets formed themselves and chimed in my heart one after another, till they finished with, “Aver, onty, ALL for Thee!”
The beautiful couplet in the same hymn,
“Take my voice, and let me sing,
Always, only, for my King,”
was thenceforth (from ‘December 1873) really
carried out. She writes:
Let us sing words which we feel and love, sacrificing everything to clearness of enunciation, and looking up to meet His smile all the while we are singing; our songs will reach more hearts than those of finer voices and more brilliant execution, unaccompanied by His power. A sacred song thus sung often gives a higher tone to the evening, and affords, both to singer and listeners, some opportunity of speaking a word for Jesus.
2 I was at a large regular London party lately, and I was so happy. He semed to give me “the secret of His presence,” and of course I sang “for Jesus,” and did not I have dead silence? Afterwards I had two really important conversations with strangers; one seemed extremely surprised at finding himself guwite easily drifted from the badinage with which he started into a right-down personal talk about /zs personal danger and “es only hope for safety; he took it very well, and thanked me. Perhaps that seed may bear fruit. Somehow it is wonderful how the Master manages for me in such cases.
JT don’t think any one can say I force the subject; it just
all develops one thing out of another, quite naturally, till very soon they find themselves face to face with eternal things, and the Lord Jesus can be freely, “lifted up” before them. I could not contrive a conversation thus.
And the following letter gives another reference
to the reality of her experience.
January 26, 1874.
Dear Mr. S — ,
I have just had such a blessing in the shape of what would have been only two months ago a really bitter blow to me; and now it is actual accession of joy, because I find that it does not even Zouch me! I was expecting a letter from America, enclosing £35 now due to me, and possibly news that “Bruey” was going on like steam, and ‘‘Under the Surface” pressingly wanted. The letter has come, and, instead of all this, my publisher has failed in the universal crash. He holds my written promise to publish only with him as the condition of his launching me; so this is not simply a little loss, but an end of all my American prospects of either cash, influence, or fame,.at any rate for a long time to come. I really had not expected that He would do for me so much above all I asked, as not merely to help me to acquiesce in this, but positively not to feel it at all, and only to rejoice in it as a clear test of the reality of victorious faith which I do find brightening almost daily.
Wo ee Two months ago this would have been a real trial to me, for I had built a good deal on my American prospects;
now “Thy will be done” is not a sigh but only a song //
I think if it had been all my English footing, present and prospective, as well as the American, that I thus found suddenly gone, it would have been worth it, for the joy it has been to find my Lord so faithful and true to all His promises. With regard to many of the promises, there seems no room for even the exercise of faith. It is not that I believe or grasp them, but that I find them all come true as I never did before. The sense of His unutterable lovingkindness to me is simply overwhelming. ‘. «.. Several times lately I have felt literally overwhelmed and overpowered with the realization of God’s unspeakable goodness to me. I say it deliberately, and
with thankfulness and joy for which I have no words. Ij
have not a fear, or a doubt, or a care, or a shadow upon the sunshine of my heart. Every day brings some quite new cause for thankfulness; only to-day He has given me such a victory as I never had before, in a very strong temptation; He lifted me above it in a way I never experienced yet.
Two months afterwards she writes:
March 19, 1894.
Dear Mr. W: 5
I can never set myself to write verse. I
believe my King suggests a thought and whispers me a musical line or two, and then I look up and thank
Him delightedly, and go on with it. That is how the hymns and poems come. Just now there is silence. I have not had the least stir of music in my mind since
I wrote that tiny consecration hymn, a most unusually long interval; and till He sends it there will be none. I am always ready to welcome it and work it when it comes, but I never press for it....
And the following letter confirms this statement.
Dear Mr. W °
I can’t make you quite understandme! You say “F,R. H. could do ‘Satisfied’ grandly”! Vo, she couldn’t! Not unless He gave it meline byline! That is how verses come. The Master has not put a chest of poetic gold into my possession and said ‘‘ Now use it as you like!” But He keeps the gold, and gives it me piece by piece just when He will and as much as He will, and no more. Some day perhaps He will send’me a bright Zze of verse on ‘ Satisfied” ringing through my mind, and then I shall look up and thank Him, and say, ‘Now, dear Master, give me another to rhyme with it, and then another”; and then perhaps He will send it all - in one flow of musical thoughts, but more likely one at a time, that I may be kept asking Him for every line. There, that is the process, and you see there is no “I can do it” at all. That isn’t His way with me. I often smile to myself when people talk about “gifted pen” or “clever verses,” etc.; because they don’t know that it is neither, but something really much nicer than being “talented” or “clever.”
Nearly every poem would verify the above. Some instances are given. When visiting at Perry Barr she walked to the boys’ schoolroom, and being very tired she leaned against the playground wall while Mr. Snepp went in. Returning in ten minutes, he found her scribbling on an old envelope, and at his request she handed him the hymn just pencilled, “Golden harps are sounding.”
In my dear sister’s copy of the “Ministry of Song” she has written particulars, which may be interesting, in connection with others of her well known hymns.
“This Same Jesus” is founded on a recollection of one sentence in a sermon of my father’s, at St. Nicholas, which struck me most vividly and happily. I shall not forget the thrill which went through me when he said, “it will be ‘this same Jesus.’” It also developed a much earlier impression of the same kind in 1851. ‘“This same Jesus” is one of the chief watchwords of my faith. I constantly recur to it, and I think it will be my comfort in the dark valley. I wrote the lines at Oakhampton, one Sunday, when detained from church by a slight accident, and gave them to my niece Miriam.
“Daily Strength.” The New Year’s bells were ringing (1859), when Maria awoke me to hear them, and quoted to me the text, “As thy days, so shall thy strength be,” as a New Year’s motto. I did not answer, but presently returned it to her’ in rhyme. She was pleased; so the next day I wrote it in her album,*
* The facsimile of the last verse, ‘‘ When thy days on earth are passed,” will be found beneath the engraved portrait of my dear sister. It shows her handwriting when copying.
“Making Poetry” was suggested by a nice little girl, Charlotte Kirke, who was spending her holidays in Wales, when I was there in 1863. She made some really pretty little quatrains, and repeated one, about a daisy, to me sitting on the window seat. She called it “making poetry,” as children always do..
“Adoration” (‘O Master, at Thy feet I bow in rapture sweet”) was written on December 31st, 1866. I felt that I had not written anything specially in praise to Christ; a strong longing to do so possessed me. I wanted to show forth As praise, to Am, not to others; even if no mortal ever saw it, He would see every line, would know the unwritten longing to praise Him, even if words failed utterly. It describes, as most of my poems do, rather reminiscence than present feeling.
““O Master!” It is perhaps my favourite title, because it implies rule and submission; and this is what love craves. Men may feel differently, but a true woman’s submission is inseparable from deep love. I wrote it in the cold and twilight in a little back room at Shareshill Parsonage.
As I began my book (“Ministry of Song”) with the expression of its devotion to God’s glory, I wished to close it with a distinctive ascription of praise to the Lord
Jesus, and therefore at once decided to place “Adoration” at the close.
Her missionary hymn “Tell it out among the heathen” was written at Winterdyne, when unable to go to church one snowy Sunday morning. She asked for her Prayer-Book (in bed), always liking to follow the services for the day. On Mr. Shaw’s. return from church, he heard her touch on the piano. “Why, Frances, I thought you were upstairs!” “Ves; but I had my Prayer-Book, and in the psalms for to-day I read ‘ Tell it out among the heathen that the Lord is King.’ I thought, what ’a splendid first line! and then words and music came rushing into me. There it’s all written out.” With copperplate neatness she had rapidly written out the words, music and harmonies complete. - Only those who heard her could imagine the brisk ringing time with which she sang this tune. It distressed her when told how slowly and drowsily it was sometimes given.
Further extracts from the correspondence of the period will close the present chapter.
My DEAREST G
I am waiting for the carriage to take me back to Oakhampton, having been spending a few hours in Worcester, and seeing some old parishioners of years ago, who recollect me as “little Miss Fanny.”... The last two days I have been very busy, having spent the whole day before at Winterdyne, and even a day always throws me behind in letters, etc. I meant to res¢ here, but somehow there always seems to be too much to do. Such a very nice “open door” is set before me that I cannot but enter in, and so I have four different Bible classes a week! besides which, as many cottagers as I can possibly visit are grateful for reading. Yesterday evening I had a “farmers’ daughters’ class; twelve came, but I think a few more will join. I enjoyed it extremely, was frightened and nervous beforehand, and unavoidable visitors detained and distracted me up to the last minute, which seemed most unfortunate, but probably cast me all the more upon Jesus and His Stretath.£ 4s <i. «Dear iG, will you pray for my little work here. I do think that in each of my classes here there is something going on, and a most earnest spirit of attention among the servants. And will you ask that I may be kept near to Jesus.
I have brought you a crystal and amethyst locket from Geneva.... They told me it was a quite new device, but somehow the novelty did not weigh with me in choosing for you, so much as the suggestiveness of the stones; the very words “crystal and amethyst” are like a far gleam from the heavenly city.
I have been thinking much lately of the Lord’s loving-kindness in giving us so much wayside enjoyment, and so much. present reward in all our work for Him. In spite of dark life enigmas, and real and heavy trials, and often keen inner conflict, not to mention daily burdens of weariness or anxiety or worry, we can set to our seal that His “‘ways are ways of pleasantness.” For, over and above the great gifts, the “blessed hope” set before us, and the quiet ‘peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” what numbers of bits and drops of pleasure and delight one gets, which simply would not exist for us if “FELLOWSHIP.” 141
we were not His children. Just look at Christian intercourse, the meetings without any cloud of suspicion or doubt of each other, the consciousness. of true sweet sympathy, the thrill that one does feel when His beloved name is named; all this, even with Christian acguaintances, is a great deal more than all the pleasure or good to be got out of any worldly intimacy or friendship so called. I want to hand over to you what I have been enjoying very much this week, a simple thought enough, but so nice. Dr, Candlish gives (in his beautiful book on the First Epistle of St. John) as one of the proofs of “fellowship with the Father,” etc., our sympathy of aim, His cause being our cause, His kingdom and its advancement our interest, what interests Him interests us, and so on. This seemed at once to transfigure all one’s daily life, and poor little small efforts to speak or write or work for God, and to exalt it into “fellowship.” I cannot convey to you how much I enjoyed it, and what a bright reality and force it gave to the words “TRuLy our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.” I like to think how impossible it would be to untwine Christ and the things of Christ from our life, inner and outer; when one comes to think about it He is so really and truly interwoven with our life that one seems to feel the “no separation” not merely as a grand promise, but an actuality which cannot be otherwise.