Epilogue
Ear Helpers, Givers, and Loving Friends, — So many of you have, for the ten years of my service, gladly and steadfastly served with me, and rejoiced in the goodness of the Lord to me, that I long to give you all a very sweet and special word of thanks, now that these records are gathered together in one volume. Your part of the business is not so heavy, but neither is it so joyful, as mine; for though you experience some of the blessedness of giving, you have to use me as your deputy, and I consequently secure the very essence of the bliss. I would, therefore, that you should realize how happy the service makes me, how bright are the mercies that cluster around the work, and shine into my heart, how inexpressibly tender are the dealings of the Lord with me, that thus some of the gladness may be reflected from my life on to yours, and you may bless God for the joy which has increased through being scattered abroad. Truly the Book Fund is the blessing, as well as the business, of my life; I should be discontented and sad indeed without it, I cannot imagine myself deprived altogether of the sweet work, engrossing, as it now does, my time, my strength, my thoughts, and a very large share of my affections.
That I must somewhat curtail its operations, and in part relax the strain of my own efforts, is, I think, an inevitable conclusion. My dear husband, in the preface to this book, has truly and tenderly set forth a fact which I am reluctantly compelled to endorse. I feel very weary sometimes, am often burdened with an overwhelming amount of correspondence, fatigued with long hours of sedentary labour, and chiefly do I mourn my inaptitude and inability to write
Epilogue. worthily the Annual Records of my work; but I dare not say this without also adding that never have I cried to my Lord for help in vain, and often in my time of greatest weakness and emptiness, have I been enabled to say, “I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me;” I can even “glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
Yes! with the blessed experience of these ten happy, laborious years to justify me, I can indeed speak rapturously of the dear Master’s service. See how gracious He has been to one so weak and unworthy; note how my feebleness has but magnified His power, my ignorance and foolishness but solicited His heavenly wisdom, my urgent need but allured a supply “according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus”!
Oh, that this true story of His love and help, given so graciously to me, may win some heart, hitherto at a distance from Him, to come and “taste and see that the Lord is good,” or stimulate others, who already know Him, to a firmer faith in His tenderness, and a more distinct and deliberate dependence on Him for everything!
Dear friends, who have been so good to me, when you are helping the Book Fund, I pray you always to remember that the blessing you bestow is fourfold You greatly enrich the minds of many poor Pastors; you lovingly help to feed the Lord’s sheep in the wilderness; you graciously adorn my life with the beauty of service; and, doubtless, you lay up for yourselves treasure in Heaven! Eternity alone can reveal all the blessing and spiritual help afforded by you, through the Book Fund, to those who are working for God and His kingdom under great and cruel disadvantages.
Would that I could put into the hearty thank you with which I conclude my closing speech a thousand sparkles of loving gratitude! It looks so tame and prosy in these dull, black letters, but it bears all my heart in it; and if you look with loving eyes upon it, you will see that it enshrines also a fervent
ffiotJ files* Son!
“Westwood,” Beulah Hill, Upper Norwood,
March, 1886.