CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI.
(1861—1869.) Oakhampton — A new power— Musical gifts —Deep borings—~ Subjects for prayer — Hiller's commendation — Remarkable power of harmonizing — Welcome to Winterdyne — Stormy petrelism —- Sent empty away — Calmer waters — Joining
Young Women's Christian Association — London — "' Guess my birthday treat!" — Signor Randegger —Epitome of his first singing lesson — New home at Leamington — How poems came — My Evelyn !—'' The Two Rings "—Weary and sad—
First sight of Alpine mountains.
N February 1861, by the wish of her sister and her brother-in-law Henry Crane, Frances undertook the instruction of her two youngest nieces, and made Oakhampton her second home.
Her father approved of this plan, because he thought it would prevent her from pursuing the severe studies so prejudicial to her health.
The lesson hours were very short, owing to the temperament of both teacher and pupils, and she had many and long changes of scene, at the seaside, at home and abroad.
She entered with zest into the recreations of her young companions, riding and scrambling, swimming and skating, croquet and chess, each in its turn, and excelled in them all.
Her
MEMORIALS OF F. R. I.
needlework was exquisite, from the often despised darning to the most delicate lace work and embroidery.
How she redeemed her time these few lines will prove:
"Stirring you up, dearie, to mental improvement is no new subject to me.
I know, by my own teaching days, how very much might be learnt in all the odds and ends of time, how (¢g.) I learnt all the Italian verbs while my nieces were washing their hands for dinner after our walk, because I could be ready in five minutes less time than they could."
The faithful old nurse well remembers "vexing over Miss Frances's hard studying, and that she found her at those Latin books long before breakfast."
Her one great object was the education of her nieces for eternity, not for time only; and not merely religious knowledge, but the realities o1 faith and holy living, were dwelt upon.
From the close of her Autobiography, darkness seems often to have clouded her path.
From time to time she writes:
I had hoped that a kind of table-land had been reached in my journey, where I might walk awhile in the light, without the weary succession of rock and _ hollow, crag and morass, stumbling and striving; but I seem borne back into all the old difficulties of the way, with many sin-made aggravations.
I think the great root of all my trouble and alienation is that I do not now make an un-
LIGHT AND SHADE.
hf Gos reserved surrender of myself to God; and until this is done I shall know no peace.
I am sure of it.
I have so much to regret : a greater dread of the opinion of worldly friends, a loving of the world, and proportionate cooling in heavenly desire and love.
A power utterly new and unexpected was given me [singing and composition of music], and rejoicing in this I forgot the Giver, and found such delight in this that other things paled before it.
It need not have been so; and, in better moments, I prayed that if it were indeed hindering. me the gift of song might be withdrawn.
And now that through my ill health it is so, and that the pleasure of public applause when singing in the Philharmonic concerts is not again to exercise its delicious delusion, I do thank Him who heard my prayer.
But I often pray in the dark, as it were, and feel no response from above.
Is this to test me?
Oh that I may be preserved from giving up in despair, and yielding, as I so often do, to the floodtide enemy.
I want to make the most of my life and to do the best with it, but here I feel my desires and motives need much purifying ; for, even where all would sound fair enough in words, an element of self, of lurking pride, may be detected.
Oh, that He would indeed purify me and make me white at any cost!
No one professing to be a Christian at all could possibly have had a more cloudy, fearing, doubting, sinning, and wandering heart history than mine has been through many years.
The first part of this year (1865) I was very poorly, and on the old régime of having to give up everything,
Sunday school and Saturday evening class, visiting,
MEMORIALS OF F. R. H.
music, etc...
It was very trying to me, specially so because I had rather built upon being stronger, and several points of interest had arisen which made me feel the more being shut off from all.
But it was very good for me ; I was able to feel thankful for it, and to be glad that God had taken mein hand as it were.
Ido not think I would have chosen otherwise than as He ordered it forme; but it seems as if my spiritual life would never go without weights, and I dread needing more discipline.
Deep. borings, even down into darksome depths, often precede the supply of unfailing springs of refreshing water.
Thus my dear sister knew much of doubt and gloom, so that she might be able to comfort others and reveal to thein God's deep teachings in the darkness.
Then, when she afterwards found such joy in the wells of salvation, she drew forth these teachings, refreshing other weary and thirsty ones with her words of sympathy both in poetry and prose.
It may be useful to copy the paper kept in her Bible, showing how she arranged the subjects of her prayers.
Lor daily Morning Prayer.
Watchfulness.
Guard over temper.
Consistency.
Faithfulness to opportunities.
For the Holy Spirit.
For a vivid love to Christ.
"IN GERMANY.
Mid-day Prayer.
Earnestness of spirit in desire, in prayer, and in all work.
Faith, hope, love.
Lvening Prayer.
Forgiveness.
To see my sinfulness in its true light.
Growth in grace.
Against morning sleepiness as hindrance to time for prayer.
The initials of all her relatives and friends are distributed to each day, and various items of intercession added, such as:
That my life may be laid out to the best advantage as to God's glory and others' good.
For the Church Missionary Society and Zenana work.
For success and usefulness with my subscribers.
For the poor whom I visit.
For the Irish Society.
Guidance and (if it is God's will) success as to music.
For my Sunday school class.
For the servants.
In the winter of 1865-6 Frances revisited her German friends, and also resided some time with her parents at Bonn.
Having composed many songs, she was anxious for some verdict on their merit.
The following letter describes her interview with Hiller, the German musician.
CLAPTON Square, February 1, 1866.
Dear MrriaAm,-— I must take up my history where I left off, and give you the Cologne story at last.
To begin at the beginning,
MEMORIALS OF F. R. 1.
"NS Or Elizabeth C. told the Schulzeberges of my composing, and so they were curious about it and wanted me to go to the Musical Academy of Cologne.
As I declared that out of the question, they hoped I would go to Ferdinand Hiller, whom they consider the greatest living composer and authority, and show him my songs.
I shrunk from this because I expected nothing but utter quenching from such a man ; still I thought that after all
I might as well know the worst, and if he thought scorn of all I had done, that would decide me to waste no more time over it; while, if I got a favourable verdict, if ever opportunity should arise of prosecuting the study of composition, I should do so with a clearer conscience and better hopes.
To my utter amazement, papa quite urged me to go, and a pleasant mirage of a possible musical term at Cologne screwed my courage up to writing to Hiller, who replied kindly, and made an appointment with me.
I went with mamma, such a queer way among the Rhine wharfs, and through narrow streets scarcely wide enough for the droschky to pass, till we emerged in a more open part, and found Hiller's abode.
He is a small elderly man, quiet in manner, of handsome and peculiar Jewish physiognomy (he is a Jew), with a forehead remarkably like papa's, and terribly clever looking eyes ; I think one would single him out as a genius among any number.
He was in a double room full of musical litter, with a handsome grand piano in the middle.
He received us very politely, and asked mea few questions (he is a man of few words), and then took my book of songs and-sat down to vead it through, giving mea volume of poetry to amuse myself with meanwhile.
You may imagine I didn't read much!
He made
INTERVIEW WITH HILLER.
"7 no remark till he was about three quarters through, when he turned and said : " What instruction have you had ?"
I told him of Hatherley's having corrected my first six songs, and that I had a musical father to whom I occae sionally referred difficult points, and with whom I had musical talk in general, "I do not care anything about that," said he, ''I mean what regular musical course have you gone through, and under what professor?"
I told him I had done nothing of the sort.
He looked very hard at me, as if to see if I was telling the truth, and then turned back to my music, saying, "' In that case
I find this very remarkable!"
When he had finished he delivered his verdict, the worst part first.
He said my melodies bore the stamp of talent, not of genius.
'In the early works of great composers," he said, '' one comes across things that startle and strike you; ideas so utterly fresh and novel that you feel there is great creative power.
Ido not find this in your melodies ; they are not bad ; on the contrary I find them very pleasing and many really very good, but they are thoroughly English in character and type; I do not consider that English melodies rank highest.
But, as for your harmonies, I must say I am astonished.
It is something singular to find such grasp of the subject, such power of harmonization, except where there has been long and thorough study and instruction; here I can give almost unlimited praise."
I told him my question was (for I thought I would take a high standard at once) not, had I talent enough to make music a mere pleasure to myself and my friends? but had I enough to make it worth while to devote myself to music asa serious thing, asa life work? Was there promise enough to make it an advisable investment of
MEMORIALS OF F. R. #1.
my life, in case I wished todo so? He said:
"Sincerely and unhesitatingly I can say that you fave."
I remarked how much I should like to study at Cologne, and under himself.
He said he should like to have the training of me; but, if distance were a difficulty, there were reliable men in London, and he would recommend his friend
Macfarren.
But I was to go to no second-rate man, that. would be simply no use to me; I could only gain the polish and " form" which my work wanted, from some one really first-rate.
He recommended mea book on harmony (which I procured in Cologne), and then wrote a few lines to papa, saying he had found a good deal of musical talent in my compositions, and that " but a short time would be sufficient to place me ina state to give a good form to the musical ideas with which I was gifted." I did not expect all this; and though I shall not do anything at present, it is pleasant to know I have a talent, which I may some day develop to some purpose, for I never quite believed what Dr. Marshall said about it, and I thought, if I had the talent he said I had, I should ee/ cleverer, somehow, than I do.
Papa is vexed because when Hiller asked "Spielen sie gut?"
(do you play well?) I replied simply " No, not. well," because I thought he would judge by a professional standard.
Papa says I ought to have then offered to play one of my things, but I had not the pluck or the presence of mind.
I supposed you would like to hear a// about Hiller, else it seems conceited to have written so much.
Now for the home journey to Lille and a pleasant visit to Mons. and Madame V——'s, Their country house is about a mile out of the town.
It was
MUSICAL MEMORY.
pleasant to meet old friends, and it is quite fascinating to get, also, a spice of fresh characters and life.
Next morning Mons. V. took me about the lower rooms, and gave me an amusing description of Lille life.
He is a sort of chieftain of the clan, which consists of about 270 nephews and nieces, and their children.
He keeps them all in order. 'On a grand peur de mon oncle Emile," says he ; "if Isee what I do not like I lecture them de manitre qu'on s'en souviendra."
But, on the other hand, "mon | oncle Emile" is rich, and can be very gracious, and is worth keeping on good terms with.
Every Sunday there are thirty-eight who "have the right" to dine with him, and every Wednesday evening he receives a wider circle in a large galerie, glass above and all round, like an immense enclosed verandah, so pretty with creepers and fancy plants all about.
It overlooks his orangery and greenhouses, ornamental water with two bridges, pretty trees, a most charming view altogether.
Such a good crossing from Calais ; the sea quite glassy !
I leaned over the side and watched the foam and cul of the water behind the paddles, and wrote verses [" Travelling Thoughts"] in my account book.
I was able to see the white cliffs of Dover for the first time, and was almost sorry to leave the boat.
Your loving sister.
It may not be out of place here to mention that such was the strength of her musical memory, that she would play through Handel, much of Beethoven and Mendelssohn, without any notes.
A pupil of Beethoven thought her rendering of the
MEMORIALS OF F. R. 7.
Moonlight Sonata perfect ; her touch was instinct with soul, as also was her singing.
During her stay at Oakhampton her brother-inlaw engaged Dr. Wm. Marshall to give her singing lessons; and she attended the meetings of the Philharmonic Society at Kidderminster, of which he was the conductor. The practice of sacred music was an extreme gratification to her, and she soon became a valued solo singer.
Her rendering of Mendelssohn's " Woe unto them," " But the Lord is mindful of His own," are remembered as peculiarly effective, though it was in Handel's music that she more particularly delighted.
The ease with which Frances constantly versified family events is shown in the following lines, written when Mr. and Mrs. Shaw left Ireland, for their English home at Winterdyne.
WELCOME TO WINTERDYNE.
(Lor December 14th, 1866.) FRANCIE and Willie, welcome to you!
Alfred and Alice, welcome too !
To an English home and English love, Welcome each little Irish dove :
Never again we hope to be Kept apart by an angry sea.
A thousand welcomes, O darlings mine, When we see you at Winterdyne,
" WELCOME TO WINTERDYNE!"
st Welcome all to a warm new nest, Just the place for our doves to rest, Through the oaks and beeches looking down
On the winding valley and quaint old town, Where ivy green on the red rock grows, And silvery Severn swiftly flows, With an extra sparkle and glitter and shine
Under the woods of Winterdyne.
On a quiet evening in lovely spring, In the tall old elms the nightingales sing ;
Under the forest in twilight grey I have heard them more than a mile away, Sweeter and louder and far more clear Than any thrush you ever did hear ; Perhaps when the evenings grow long and fine
They will sing to you in Winterdyne.
Little to sadden, and nothing to fear; Priest, and Fenian, never come here; Only the sound of the Protestant bells Up from the valley pleasantly swells, And a beautiful arch, to church, is made
Under the sycamore avenue's shade ; You pass where its arching boughs entwine, Out of the gates of Winterdyne.
Welcome to merry old England!
And yet We know that old Ireland you will not forget ; Many a thought and prayer will fly Over the mountains of Wales, so high, Over the forest and over the sea, To the home which no longer yours must be.
But farewells are over, O darlings mine, Now it is Welcome to Winterdyne !
| G
MEMORIALS OF F. R. Hi.
Her own words will continue the record of her inner life in the year 1866.
Few things have a more salutary effect upon me than reading secular biographies.
For, successful or unsuccessful alike, "vanity of vanities" seems the truest characteristic of every life not devoted to the very highest aim.
"Queens of Society," '" Autobiography of Louis Spokr," and others, have left this feeling strongly upon me, and have been auxiliary in making me wish that my life may be laid out for Him, whose it is by right. Oh, that He may make me a vessel sanctified and meet for the Master's use!
I look at trial and training of every kind in this light, not its effect upon oneself for oneself, but in its gradual fitting of me to do the Master's work.
So, in very painful spiritual darkness or conflict, it has already comforted me to think that God might be leading me through strange dark ways, so that I might afterward be His messenger to some of His children in similar distress.
My ill health this summer has been very trying to me.
I am held back from much I wanted to do in every way, and have had to lay poetizing aside.
And yet such open doors seemed set before me.
Perhaps this check is sent that I may consecrate what I do more entirely.
I have a curious vivid sense, not merely of my verse faculty in general being given me, but also of every separate poem or hymn, nay every line, being given, It is peculiarly pleasant thus to take it as a direct gift, not a matter of effort, but purely involuntarily, .
I suppose that God's crosses are often made of most unexpected and strange material.
Perhaps trial must_
STORMY PETRELISM.
be felt keenly, or it would not be powerful enough as a medicine in the hands of our beloved Healer; and I think it has been a medicine to me latterly.
You may wonder that I write thus, when I was so merry with you at L ; but, among the best gifts of God to me, I count a certain stormy petrelism of nature, which seems to enable me to skim any waves when I am not actually under them.
I have an elasticity which often makes me wonder at myself, a power of throwing myself into any present interest or enjoyment, though the sorrow is only suspended not removed.
But once I seemed permitted to suffer mentally in an unmitigated sort of way, which I never knew before.
Perhaps to teach me how to feel for others who have not that stormy petrelism which bears me through most things.
For that forsook me utterly, and I felt crushed and forsaken of all or any help or cheer, to an extent I never felt before.
I wish I rejoiced more, not only on my own account, but if I may so say, on /77s, for surely I should praise
Him more by both lip and life.
Mine has been such a shady Christian life, yet '' He led them forth by the right way " must somehow be true here, though I don't see how.
I ought to make one exception ; I have learned a real sympathy with others walking in darkness, and sometimes it has seemed to help me to help them.
I send you this text, Matthew xxv. qo, and I want you to let it brighten all your work ; but one can never come to the end of the graciousness of it.
Some months ago, I called on one of my dear old women in Worcester.
She talked of the King; and, coming away, I felt impelled to give her something which I had not
MEMORIALS OF F. R. 7.
intended for her, and knew I could not afford without a trifling self-denial.
She took it silently, paused, and then said, with a simple sweet solemnity, "Inasmuch!"
Well, ever since I have revelled in that wonderful " Inasmuch."
Only think of His really considering all our poor little services as done unto Him! And this is quite apart from what we consider success or results.
It is not only spiritual ministrations, but all other little kindnesses.
How one would have liked to have been one of the women who ministered unto Him, but it is so marvellously gracious of Him to give you and me, to wit, opportunities of doing what He considers the same thing.
- » « .
You may think it strange, but I have long almost shrunk from going to the sacrament, dreading the being sent empty away.
Oh, if He would but grant me my request just once—that I might "taste and see!"
Communion Sundays are so often my saddest days ; great tension of feeling, longing unsatisfied desire, and sorrowful pleading, followed by the reaction of miserable apathy.
It is only one or two who know about my clouds, though many know what I dedieve about sunshine.
« .
Sunday is over.
'Sent empty away."
Just empty, no other word seems to express it; not full of anything.
I would rather even have been full of distress than thus empty.
Not one sweet verse or comforting thought seemed given me.
All the beautiful service seemed to pass through the ear and never reach my heart.
Oh, if He would only show me "wherefore He contendeth with me."
It has brought me to the terrible old feeling, 'how can I be one of His-sheep if I never hear the Shepherd's voice, if He never merts me where
He meets others ?"
EXTRACTS : 1867.
Her nieces Evelyn and Constance went to school in 1866-7; and, in consequence, Frances then left Oakhampton, and always afterwards resided at home.
(from F. R. H's manuscript papers, May 1867. ipt p y
It seems as if the Lord had led me into a calmer and more equable frame of mind; not joy, but peace.
And texts light up to me very pleasantly sometimes.
Why should I not take for granted all I find in the Bible? why should I hesitate and tremble over it, as I have been doing for years?
I have been appropriating all the promises with a calm sort of twilight happiness, waiting for a clearer light to show me their full beauty and value.
It does seem to me that "free grace" does not mean there is wofhing on our side.
We may phrase it "coming," "accepting,"
" believing," "touching the hem"; but there is something which these words represent, which is necessary to salvation; and then comes the question, have / this condition?
Yet as soon as / in any form comes in, there is shadow upon the light.
Still, this shadow need not fall when the eye is fixed upon Christ as the Substitute, the Lamb slain; then all is clear.
But it is in reading, when one's heart leaps at some precious promise made to the children of God, that a cold check comes, ''am / one of them? what is my title?"
Answer, "Ye are all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ."
Have I faith?
Once introduce that Z, and you get bewildered between faith and feeling,
MEMORIALS OF FR. H.
When I go on and grapple with the difficulty, it comes to this.
As far as I know, I have come to Jesus, not once but many times.
I have knelt, and literally prostrated myself before Him, and told Him all, that I have no other hope but what His wrt/ten word says He did and said, that I know it is true, that the salvation it tells of is just what I want and a I want, and that my heart goes out to it, and that I do accept it; that I do not fully grasp it, but I c@ng to it; that I want to be
His only and entirely, now and for ever.
(The last entry.) I have been so. happy lately, and the words " Thou hast put gladness in my heart" I can use, as true of my own case; especially as to one point, I am sure now (and J never was before) that I do love God.
I love Him distinctly, positively ; and I think I have loved Him more and longer than I thought, only I dared not own it to myself.
Oh that I loved Him more and more ! How I abhor myself for having loved, for loving, so little.
In the autumn of 1867 she enjoyed a visit to the lakes with her former schoolfellow, J. H. E,, and J. T., a charming poetess.
Frances writes:
"IT had every possible variety of -eifects -from grey lake mists and rain to silver and gold, and rosy transparent purple and soft dreamy hazes, and marvellous clearness and veilings and unveilings, and everything that is lovely except snow."
YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION.
(ZR. H. to Miss Clara Gedge, September 1867.) .
I thank you very specially for having asked me to join the Young Women's Christian Association.
On my side it will be an extra strong link; because, whatever help and blessing for myself and others I may find through it, I shall not forget that I owe my membership to you.
I have written the date of my joining in the cover of my Bible, as a continual reminder (if any could be needed) of such a privilege ; and under it the names of all whom I know to be members, yours of course standing first.
How little we know each other's need! How often the text we want to send must be a bow drawn at a venture!
Yet again, how alike are our needs, and how pleasant to know that we may ask Him, to whom each heart is open, to guide us to choose the right gem from the precious mine of His word!
Ido not feel inclined to send you anything out of the way to-day, dear Clara, but just one of the dear old rock-texts, which are always something to stand upon, and this one especially so for your birthday: "He hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee."
For this embraces all our years; if true at all, it has been so all along, even when we felt far off, He was near when we felt alone; He was surely, though hidden, beside us.
The date on the Y. W. C. A. card of memberBbip. ig. september 23,1967; No. 2165, . This Association proved a lifelong rivet; and manifold were her efforts, to link others in its helpful fellowship.
MEMORIALS OF F. R. H.
It is impossible to give even an idea of her efforts for many societies.
Just at this time, she was wishful to give lessons in singing, for the Church Missionary Society; and her steady work in collecting for it never ceased.
The Jews', the Church Pastoral-Aid, and the Bible Society were alike valued.
Skilfully did she induce others to take an interest in them; and in the February of her last winter (1879), one bitter night, she headed a number of Welsh neighbours and lads to go, for the first time in their lives, to a Bible
Society meeting at the Mumbles.
We again give some extracts from her letters.
PEMBRIDGE CRESCENT, JVovember 1867.
» » Among other pleasures in London, I have made acquaintance with the authoress of " Doing and Suffering."
She gave me a good deal of practical advice about my schemes for milliners' classes.
I want very much to give singing lessons for the Church Missionary Society, and German lessons for the Irish Society; this would be clear gain, and also give me opportunities for influence among the class which interest me so much.
Imust tell you about the east window in Mr.
Bickersteth's church at Hampstead.
Nothing in the window line ever made such an impression upon me.
It is all filled in with simple arabesque and diaper work, merely quiet harmonious colour, nothing to arrest the eye, except the centre light, and in that is a white scroll on a blue ground, with just the words in crimson and
A SINGING LESSON.
gold letters, "Till He come."
It sent quite a thrill through me.
It is so exactly what one would like to look up to from the holy table.
I must send you "In whom we have the forgiveness of sins," because I have just had a glimpse of the beauty and power of it, and I like best to send you what has been given me.
Of course I lost it again; but, in praying for forgiveness, and sorrowfully enough, as usual, I remembered your quotation from Adelaide Newton, and ¢4en this flashed upon me, "zz whom—we have," and was so satisfactory.
Perhaps you don't feel the utter need of it that I do, but still I know it 7s precious truth for every one.
GopstTonE, December 1867.
Guess my birthday treat?
To the Zoological Gardens.
I don't know anything I would rather see in London.
I am 'a perfect baby as to animals!
I managed to get three more singing lessons, though I was never in voice, and had a bad cold. Signor Randegger says I have many mechanical difficulties to overcome, but gives me credit for "talent, taste, feeling, and brains."
I might improve if under him for a year, and he consoled me by saying "T might always calculate on expressive singing." - His first lesson was a lecture on the formation of the throat and production of sound, which he told me to write out as an abstract.
I was very poorly in bed the next day ; so, having nothing to do, it occurred to me to rhyme it.
Afterwards I was afraid lest he might be touchy and think I was making game of it.
However it was quite the other way, and he asked for a copy to show his pupils.
MEMORIALS OF F. R. L.
MY SINGING LESSON.
(Adstract.) Here beginneth,—Chapter the first of a series, To be followed by manifold notes and queries ;
So novel the queries, so trying the notes, I think I must have the queerest of throats,
And most notable dulness, or else long ago The Signor had given up teaching, I trow.
I wonder if ever before he has taught A pupil who can't do a thing as she ought!
The voice has machinery (now to be serious), Invisible, delicate, strange, and mysterious.
A wonderful organ-pipe firstly we trace, Which is small in a tenor and wide in a bass:
Below an £olian harp is provided, Through whose fairy-like fibres the air will be guided.
Above is an orifice, larger or small, As the singer desires to rise or to fall ;
Expand and depress it, to deepen your roar, But raise and contract it, when high you would soar.
Alas for the player, the pipes, and the keys, If the bellows give out an inadequate breeze !
So this is the method of getting up steam, The one motive power for song or for scream.
Slowly and deeply, and just like a sigh, Fill the whole chest with a mighty supply ;
Through the mouth only, and not through the nose ; And the lungs must condense it ere farther it goes.
(How to condense it I really don't know, And very much hope the next lesson will show.)
Then, forced from each side, through the larynx it comes, And reaches the region of molars and gums,
THE NEW HOME.
And half of the sound will be ruined or lost If by any impediment here it is crossed.
On the soft of the palate beware lest it strike, The effect would be such as your ear would not like.
And arch not the tongue, or the terrified note Will straightway be driven back into the throat.
Look well to your trigger, nor hasten to pull it, Once hear the report and you've done with your bullet.
In the feminine voice there are registers three, Which upper, and middle, and lower must be ;
And each has a sounding-board all of its own, The chest, lips, and head, to reverberate tone.
But in cavities nasal it never must ring, Or no one is likely to wish you to sing.
And if on this subject you waver in doubt, By listening and feeling the truth will come out.
The lips, by-the-bye, will have plenty to do In forming the vowels Italian and true ;
Eschewing the English, uncertain and hideous, With an o and a zw that are simply amphibious.
In flexible freedom let both work together, And the under one must not be stiffened like leather.
Here endeth the substance of what I remember, Indited this twenty-sixth day of November.
The following extracts will illustrate my dear sister's life at this time.
PyRMONT ViLLA, LEAMINGTON, December 27, 1867.
My first note in my new room in our new home must be to you.
It is solemn to think of what I may go through in this room: probably many happy
MEMORIALS OF F. R. fi.
hours, certainly many sorrowful ones.
In all human probability it will be my room until the great sorrow falls which has already often seemed imminent, unless I die before my precious father.
I have just been praying words from my own mamma's lips, when I was a little girl, "' Prepare me for all that Thou art preparing for me."
Yet, spite of these thoughts, I have not been at _all in a good frame of mind; oh, how often hidden evil is brought to light by some unexpected
Ithuriel touch.
Every one calls me sweet tempered; but oh, I have been so ruffled two or three times, that I wonder and grieve at myself.
I always suffer for being naughty ; I lose all enjoyment in prayer directly. 'Oh, for a heart that never sins !"
January 18th, 1868, after describing her room:
Can you fancy me there? The only drawback is that, being at the top of the house, it will not be available for classes.
I do wish all good carpets and furniture were at the bottom of the sea!
They are among the devices to hinder usefulness.
I have done nothing about a class yet, and do hope I shall not be wilful in choosing for myself!
Imnever saw such a place as Leamington, every hole and corner seems dusted out!
Such a number of earnest loving workers ; some are wonderful, I am not worthy to sit at their feet.
(To £.°C.) LEAMINGTON, February 22, 1868.
" Grace unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."
I send for your birthday the result of a year's daily and loving thought for you [a
"77IDDEN LEAVES."
Bible marked].
It is the worse for wear, having been with me in boxes, bags, and pockets.
I have marked what struck me as containing food, light, and teaching of some sort.
I do hope you will find my markings a help and pleasure, because not one chapter has been read without prayer for the Holy Spirit's teaching.
Can you not take Psalm xxiii. 6 as a birthday text? only, the goodness and mercy ave following ail the days, even when their bright outline is lost in the shadow of closely pressing trials, and sometimes in our own shadow.
I am getting on with my book, and might finish it in a week or two by putting on steam ; but I am resolutely not hurryingit.
February, 1868.
« « Ihavenothad a single poem come to me for some time, till last night, when one shot into my mind.
All my best have come-in that way, Minerva fashion, full grown.
It is so curious, one minute I have not an idea of writing anything, the next I have a poem; it is mine, 1 see it all, except laying out rhymes and metre, which is then easy work!
I rarely write anything which has not come thus.
" Hidden Leaves" is the title; I wonder how you would work it out after this beginning ;
'Oh the hidden leaves of life, Closely folded in the breast !"
The illness and death of her niece, Evelyn Emily Crane, was deeply felt.
We may not give full details; but it was her Aunt Frances who had led her to Christ some three years before, and her
MEMORIALS OF F. R. I.
dying message confirmed the reality of her joyful trust in the Lord Jesus.
April 14, 1868.
Dearest Marta,— That is indeed a precious message.
The tension of this last week has been terrible.
I think it so excessively kind of you to tell me all you do.
I hunger for it 5 you will understand how. My Evelyn's ring!* This is kind!
I shall always wear it.
Once she wanted to wear mine.
I have had most beautiful and comforting notes from J. H. E. and many others.
The Hebrew word J.H.S. sent me pleased me much.
I have had-such sympathy from my new friends here.
Oh, Marie dear, it zs answer to prayer indeed.
Don't think me selfish in letting out a little to you, or that I do not intensely feel for them because I feel so much myself.
I wrote some verses Saturday evening (which I intended no one to see), " Dying? Evelyn, darling! Dying? canit be?" t but will send them you; and, if you think they would be more pleasure than pain, show them poor ——.
The memorial card made me realize it at last.
Last night I sat long with it before me, with such an utter flood of love for that child in my heart.
It rose and rose, and. the sorrow and sense of loss with it, and how I last saw her, in all her graceful beauty.
Then, at last, came a sudden glimpse, almost a vision, of seeing her again and having such a full and loving welcome from her above!
Your loving sister.
* See 'The Two Rings," in '' Under the Surface," page 221.
+ See "' Under His Shadow," page 167.
"MARVELLOUS LOVINGKINDNESS."
Leamincton, Jay 1868.
- + » Iam not ill, but overdone and tired.
A nice letter even to you is an impossibility.
This has been trial, but as yet I see no "nevertheless afterwards."
I have been falling back on "O Lord, Thou knowest."
- .
I only send you two words; but they are, and will be seen to be, the true "theme" or "subject," speaking musically, carried through all the majors and minors of life: "MARVELLOUS LOVINGKINDNESS."
« (To E. C.) LEAMINGTON, February, Another birthday ! so I send you another note of birthday love; 'Surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God."
'That word "work" seems to include and imply "veward of work," so the whole thing is with your God; it is as if you carry home your daily portion of work to Him, and He lays it up safe with what preceded it; and some day He will bring it out all in one beautiful completed piece, with many finishings and beautifyings beyond what your hand wrought; and His
"Well done!" will be your reward, whether it be delayed till He adds "Enter thou" or not.
At last I have had my longed for " pause in life," but as yet I am not well enough to enjoy it.
Maria will tell you how wretchedly lI have been.
...
May 8th.
I only heard of your accident last night.
My dear old text flashed upon me the instant I heard of it, "Meet for the Master's use"; surely it is for that He has taken His vessel away from active use, that it may be made more meet.
I feel so disposed to look out
MEMORIALS OF F. R. fH.
for much marked blessing upon you and your work when He permits you to resume it.
Let me give you another, 'He will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry."
That has comforted me often, more than any promise of answer; it includes answers and a great deal more besides ; it tells us what He 1s towards us, and that is more than what He will d. And the "ery * >is not long, connected, thoughtful prayers; a cry is just an wnworded dart upwards of the heart, and at that "voice" He will be very gracious.
What a smile there is in these-words !
In May 1869 our brother-in-law, .Mr. Crane, took Frances, with his wife and eldest daughter
Miriam, to Switzerland, by the Rhine route to Heidelberg, Freiburg, Basle and Schaffhausen.
Her neatly kept journal has photographs of the several places visited, and the Alpine flowers she dried for its pages.
Tue RHINE Fa.ts, June gth.
It was fascinating to look down at the wild rapids, sheets of glass-like transparency, flowing swiftly over rock tables, then a sudden precipice below water, which might go down to any depth, only that you are not looking down into darkness, but into emerald and snow mingled and transfused marvellously.
The rocks beneath are not a smooth ledge ; thus the water is thrown out into a chaos of magnificent curves and leaps, infinitely more beautiful than any single chute could be.
You look up, and see masses of bright water hurled everlastingly irresistibly down, down, down with a sort of
SNOW MOUNTAINS.
exuberance of the joy of utter strength; you look across, and see shattered diamonds by millions leaping and glittering in the sunshine; you look down, and it is a tremendous wrestling and overcoming of flood upon flood, all the more weirdly grand that it is half hidden in the clouds of spray.
Every drop is so full of light that the eye is soon dazzled and weary : oh if one were only all spirit!
The next day it was great luxury to sit on the terrace overlooking the falls.
I jotted some verses ('' He hath spoken in the darkness "),* which have been haunting me for two or three days.
The text was sent me lately, "' What I tell you in darkness that speak ye in light."
I never noticed it before ; how strange it is what treasures we miss every time we read His word!
BERNE, /une 12th.
At last!
Miriam crept quietly to the window about 5 a.m., and I woke as she passed.
'' Anything to see?"
"Oh yes, I really do believe I see them!"
Of course I was up in a second.
The sun had risen above the thick mist, and away in the south east were the weird giant outlines of the Bernese Oberland mountains bending towards the sun, as if they had been our mighty guardian spirits all night, and were resigning their charge ere they flew away into farther light.
The very mist was a folding of wings about their feet, and a veiling of what might be angel brows, quiet and serene.
It isno use laughing at "fancies"; wait till you have seen what we did from the roof of the Berner Hof!
So now the dream of all my life is realized, and I * See '' Under the Surface," page 161. y
MEMORIALS OF F, R. £1.
have seen snow mountains!
When I was quite a little child of eight years old I used to reverie about them, and when I heard the name of the snow-covered Sierra de la Summa Paz (perfect peace) the idea was completed ; and I thenceforth always thought of eternal snow and perfect peace together, and longed to see the one and drink in the other.
And Iam not disappointed.
They are just as pure, and bright, and peace-suggestive as ever I dreamt them.
It may be rather in the style of the old women who invariably say "It's just like heaven," when they get a tolerably comfortable tea-meeting ; but really
I never saw anything material and earthly which so suggested the ethereal and heavenly, which so seemed to lead up to the unseen, to be the very steps of the Throne; and one could better fancy them to be the visible foundations of the invisible celestial city, bearing some wonderful relation to its transparent gold and crystal sea, than only snow and granite, rising out of this same every-day earth we are treading, dusty and stony!
In the autumn of this year Frances went to Scotland, and extremely enjoyed the Highland scenery ; at the same time visiting various friends.
CHA PEER -ViL (1870—1871.) A father's holy teachings — Peaceful death — ** Yet speaketh" -- 'Songs of Grace and Glory" — How harmony was learnt -~
Letter on tunes in '* Hayergal's Psalmody" — The '' hush of praise"?
-— Sympathy — The great transition — The most enjoyable trip to Switzerland — A real Alpine dawn — The Vaudois chaplain — Vivas on the Col de la Seigne — Christmas Day — Waiting, not working.
ANY pictures could be drawn of Frances' home life at Leamington.
Especially did she value the sympathy of her dear father in all her studies.
With him she delighted to talk out hard questions; and his classical knowledge, his poetic and musical skill, settled many a point.
She would rush down with her new poems or thoughts, awaiting his criticisms.
And very charming was it to hear her lively coaxing that he would "just sing,' as she accompanied his sacred songs ; while at other times I have seen her absorbed with his improvised melodies, fugues and intricate progressions, thrilling yet passing.
His holy and consistent example, ever holding forth the word of life and sound doctrine, had been
MEMORIALS OF F. R. I.
as a guiding light on his child's path; of this Frances writes in " Yet Speaketh."
"Deep teachings from the Word he held so dear, Things new and old in that great treasure found,
A valiant cry, a witness strong and clear, A trumpet with no dull uncertain sound ;
These shall not die, but live; his rich bequest To that beloved Church whose servant is at rest."
Another daughter describes him very truthfully; and her lines are also given.
A Tribute to my Father, on his Birthday, 1866, WHILE we reckon up thy years, Balancing our hopes and fears, Praise we our Redeemer's grace Shining on thy pilgrim race.
He hath given thee work to do, And the task to suffer too.
He hath given thee art to twine Music-chords with song sublime, Holy chant and choral hymn, Praise-notes fit for seraphim ; Tuneful voice and ready pen Charm and teach the souls of men; And thy God hath given thee skill, Guiding youth to do His will; And, as pastor in His fold, Christ's salvation to uphold.
Now a time for rest is thine In the land of Beulah's shine,
OUR FATHER'S DEATH.
Icl Where the angels come and go, Bringing help and hope, and low Sweet echoes of the heavenly chime, Cheering on the flight of time.
Oh may health and peace be given, Till the ties of earth be riven, And this birthday happy be With the light of heaven on Thee!
J. Miriam CRANE.
The shadow of death fell swiftly and stealthily on our dear father's path.
The care of his devoted wife had, doubtless, warded off many an attack of serious illness.
On Easter Even, 1870, he was unusually well and had walked out during the day.
Later on he sat down to his harmonium, playing and singing the tune composed by him in the morning.* He rose early, as usual, on Easter Day ; but apoplexy ensued ; and, after forty-eight hours of unconsciousness, he passed away.
"Yet speaketh!" there was no last word of love, So suddenly on us the sorrow fell ; Ilis bright translation to the home above
Was clouded with no shadow of farewell ; His last Lent evening closed with praise and prayer,
And then began the songs of endless Faster there."
In Astley churchyard, under the fir tree (the place which he had chosen years before), he rests
* No, 163 in '' Havergal's Psalmody."
MEMORIALS OF F. R. #1.
"till that day."
The epitaph on the white marble tomb is as follows:
The Rev. WiLt1AM Henry HAvERGAL, M.A., Vicar of Shareshill and Hon. Canon of Worcester Cathedral. Died at Leamington, roth April, 1870, aged 77.
Curate 7, and Rector 13 years, of this parish, 1822 to 1843.
"A faithful minister in the Lord" (Eph. vi. 21).
Memorial tablets were also placed in Worcester Cathedral, St. Nicholas and Shareshill Churches.
Some weeks after, Frances wrote to Elizabeth Clay*:
I was terribly upset last night, and yet not all sadness ; one of papa's chants was gloriously sung at the Westminster Abbey evening service ; such a scene and such music!
, "I know their sorrows" (Exod. ili. 7) is full of intensest comfort when it zs needed; it is the climax in it which has so much struck me as corresponding to three degrees of sorrow which I suppose all know ; anyhow, you do and I do.
'That sorrow which can be seez isthe lightest form really, however apparently heavy ; then there is that which is mot seen, secret sorrows which yet can be put into words, and can be told to near friends as well as be poured out to God; but there are sorrows beyond these, such as are ever told, and cannot be put into words, and may only be wordlessly laid before God: these are the deepest. Now comes the supply for each: "I have seen" that which is patent and external; "I have heard their cvy," which is the expression of this, and of as much of the external as is expressible ; but this would not go deep enough,
"HAVERGAL'S PSALMODY."
so God adds, "I now their sorrows," down to very depths of all, those which no eye sees or ear ever heard.
Is it not a beautiful climax ?
It was soon after her father's death that my sister undertook the preparation for the press of "Havergal's Psalmody," which afterwards was largely used in connection with the Rev. C. B.
Snepp's Hymnal, " Songs of Grace and Glory," of which full details will be found in the Appendix.
The preparation for the work of harmonizing she alludes to in a letter to her friend Mary C. in 1866.
How I should like to teach you harmony!
I do believe I could make it lucid; you can't think what exquisite symmetry there is in chords and intervals, so that I always feel, as well as believe, that man by no means invented harmony, but only found out God's beautiful arrangements in it.
As for my own compositions, I am (at some cost of resolution) abstaining entirely.
Hiller, of Cologne, recommended me an excellent book, which I got, and determined to write no more till
Ihad gone through it; this I am steadily doing, and enjoy writing the exercises.
I suppose, after Hiller's professional opinion, it would be affectation to say I had no talent, and I certainly do feel I have at least a sort of inherited instinct for seeing into harmonies.
The way I studied harmony was rather unique; some years ago (at home) I kept a treatise on harmony in my bedroom, read as much as I could conveniently grasp the last thing, and then worked out the exercises in my head before go:ng to-sleep.
This I did for several weeks,
MEMORIALS OF F. R. H.
and suppose I must have taken it in very comfortably under this system, inasmuch as I had some work to persuade Hiller that I had gone through no "academical course !"
Frances writes (1870) of difficulties in the work :
I was so struck this morning with "Thou art the Helper of the fatherless,'—the very first time one of those special orphan promises has come home to me.
I had been puzzling over a tune which papa would have decided about in a minute, and missed him so much, when suddenly this verse flashed upon me brightly.
I think that even in music the Lord is my helper now, much more in other things.
When composing some tunes at this time, I selected six about which I felt doubtful, and sent them to Sir
Frederic Ouseley, asking him to say if they were all right.
This he most kindly did; to my great delight he endorsed them every one, and praised them too.
Very prayerfully did she write several hymns for "Songs of Grace and Glory"; and, when she heard from time to time of their being blessed, she wrote in answer to a friend's communication:
It does seem wonderful that God should so use and bless my hymns; and yet it really does seem as if the seal of His own blessing were set upon them, for so many testimonies have reached me.
Writing is praying with me, for I never seem to write even a verse by myself, and feel like a little child writing; you know a child would look up at every sentence and say " And
WRITING FOR THE GREAT CONGREGATION. 105
what shall I say next?"
That is just what I do; I ask that at every line He would give me, not merely thoughts and power, but also every word, even the very riymes.
Very often I have a most distinct and happy consciousness of direct answers.
As you use " Havergal's Psalmody" I thought you might be interested to know a little more about my dear father, so will you accept a " Memorial" of him.
Literal "singing for Jesus" is to me, somehow, the most personal and direct commission I hold from my beloved Master; and my opportunities for it are often most curious, and have been greatly blessed; every line in my little poem "Singing for Jesus" is from personal experience...
I was so overwhelmed on Sunday at hearing three of my hymns touchingly sung at Perry Church.
I never before realized the high privilege of writing for "the great congregation"; especially 633, "I gave My life for thee" to papa's tune " Baca"; the others were 120 and 921 in "5S. G;-G."
(Zo Margaret V——.) .
Last night they sang "To Him who for our sins was slain," to my little tune "Tryphosa"; it went so deliciously, and choir and congregation really rang out the Alleluias so brightly that it suddenly came over me, as it never did before, what a privilege it is even to have contributed a bit of music for His direct praise.
It was a sort of Aush of praise, all alone with Jesus, for His great -goodness., I had no idea "'Tryphosa" was such a pretty tune before !
About coming to hear ——, I see that I shall glorify
MEMORIALS OF F.R. LH,
Him most by staying away. rwits of my profession are looked for, and what will be looked for in this case is submission to known wishes and the yielding up of my own.
Itis sure to be all right.
I don't think fe will let me lose the blessing and the help I had looked torin coming' fs One result of her own trials was sympathy with others, beautifully expressed in the following letter.
LEAMINGTON, December 10, 1870.
Dear, DEAR Mrs. SNEPP,— What can one do but just weep with you!
J can only guess what this sorrow is.
Only, I know it must be the greatest, except ove, which could come to you.
That dear little beautiful thing!
He looked so sweet and happy when I saw him at the station: no baby face ever haunted me as, somehow, his did.
If you could only see him now, how beautiful he must be now that he has seen Jesus and shines in the light of God.
It is even more wonderful to think of that great transition for a baby than for a grown person; one cannot imagine the sudden expansion into such knowledge and conscious joy.
Iwas looking back, early this morning, upon long memories of soul trials, years of groping and stumbling and longing, sinning and sorrowing, of heart weariness and faintness, temptation and failure; all these things which I suppose every Christian must pass through, more or less, at some stage or other on the way home; and the first distinct thought which came through the surprise and sorrow at the sad news was, "that dear little redeemed one is spared all ¢/zs, taken home without any of these
MOST ENFOVABLE SWISS TOUR.
roughest roughnesses of the way ; he will never fear or doubt or sin, zever grieve the Saviour."
Is it not the very best and kindest thing that tender Saviour could do for him?
Only it is not what you meant when you . prayed that he might be His own.
But deé/er, for he is with Him at once and for ever, and waiting for you to come home too.
Iam only writing all this because my heart is full, and must pour out a little.
I know we can't comfort, only Jesus can; and I shall go and plead long and intensely for this as soon as I have closed my letter.
He must be specially "touched" in such a sorrow, for He knows by actual experience what human love is.
Three such great sorrows in one year! how specially He must be watching you in sucha furnace!
Yours, with deepest sympathy and love.
In June of 1871 Frances and her friend Eliza- ° beth Clay spent some weeks in Switzerland; with no encumbering luggage, just carpet bags and knapsacks, they often diverged from beaten routes.
Frances always spoke of ¢#zs as the most enjoyable of all her Swiss tours. Walking up the Reuss valley she writes from Geschenen :
Hurrah! we are ina most exhilarated state of mind, just like children; and, except a little undercurrent of general thanksgiving we don't feel solemn at all, and have been in the wildest spirits.
From Andermatt we took the diligence to the Furca pass.
It is so early that, in some places, the road lay between walls of snow.
We were obliged to take a guide up the Furca horn, as there is no vestige of a track; the
MEMORIALS OF F. k. H.
snow slopes were most entertaining to cross, and I enjoyed the scramble excessively.
Going up the Aeggischhorn (she continues), an Alpine Clubbist with the guide Fischer was before us, and he afterwards told our guide, Alexander, that he watched us from above, and that I "went up like a chamois!" and he was quite astonished how quickly I got up a difficult climb; but I always had an instinct I should find myself a rather extra good climber.
The glissades down are simply delicious.
Bet Atp, July 8.
To-day has been the best of all.
We secured Anton Walden for the Sparrenhorn, which is nearly 10,000 feet.
Another lady, Miss Anstey, joined.
Coffee at 3.30, started before 4 a.m.
Now I have seen it at last, a real Alpine dawn and sunrise to perfection!
When we came out we saw the " daffodil sky," which Tyndall describes, in the east a calm glory of expectant light as if something positively celestial must come next, instead of merely the usual sun.
In the south west the grand mountains stood, white and perfectly clear, as if they might be waiting for the resurrection, with the moon shining pale and radiant over them, the deep Rhone valley dark and grave-like in contrast below.
As we got higher, the first rose flush struck the Mischabel and Weisshorn, and Monte Leon came to life too ; it was veal rose-fire, delicate yet intense.
The Weisshorn was in its full glory, looking more perfectly lovely than any earthly thing I ever saw. When the tip of the Matterhorn caught the red light on its evillooking rocky peak, it was just like a volcano and looked rather awful than lovely, giving one the idea of an evil
THE VAUDOIS CHAPLAIN.
Icg angel, impotently wrathful, shrinking away from the serene glory and utter purity of a holy angel, which that Weisshorn at dawn might represent if anything earthly could. The eastern ridges were almost jet, in front of the great golden glow into which the daffodil sky heightened.
By 4.30 a.m. it was all over, and thenceforth we devoted ourselves to getting up the Sparrenhorn,
After many other excursions they went down into the Italian valleys, July 28th.
CourmMAyEuR.
I have been writing in a delicious den, under a rock, cool and shady, a discovery of Elizabeth's.
It commands a grand front of Mont Blanc.
We had a stiff climb to the shoulder of a mountain whose Courmayeur face is a striking precipice.
There is a tolerable path up a gorge, leading to a ride just below the cone of Mont Chétif.
From this point we had a face-to-face view of the most precipitous side of Mont Blanc, with the ice fall of the Glacier de
Brenva.
The summit of Mont Blanc was veiled, but I think that added to the weird sublimity of the view.
One evening the English chaplain and Mrs. Phinn asked us to come to tea, to meet Costabel, the Vaudois missionary pastor stationed here.
This was very inter: esting; he is a nice, simple, good man, and told us a great deal about Vaudois work. Costabel is very isolated here (but Mr Phinn has quite taken him up), for he has only a few poor Christian friends, and never any superior society unless the English find him out.
He told us that the fear of death among the people here is awful, and that he is frequently present at the most painful death gcenes, Dyring life and health they leaye everything ta
IIo
MEMORIALS OF F. R. H.
the priest, and believe that he will make it all right for them ; and, except complying with certain forms, do not think or trouble themselves about religion at all.
Then, when they are dying they get alarmed, and see that this natural shifting of their religion upon another (the priest) will not do; they lose confidence in him, and have no other; they want peace and have none; they would like to feel assured, but they have no assurance ; and they die in agonies of terror.
It was terrible to hear Costabel's description of what he says is the rule as to Romish death beds.
'' Unto the poor the gospel is preached," and he says itis so here.
Only the poor will listen to him, and those in the outlying villages where no priest resides.
We find the people here quite different from the Swiss, and not at all so ready to accept Gospels.
It is the first place where, on offering any, we have been asked '" whether it was a Protestant book" ; however they always end by taking them.
Mont Blanc is more than ever supreme to me; it is quite strange what a difference in effect there is between him and Monte Rosa, though this is second in height and only 500 feet lower.
Monte Rosa is quite disappointing and unimposing ; and, as there are four other mountains round Zermatt very nearly as high, and seven or eight more not much lower, there is nothing of this imperial supremacy which makes Mont Blanc so unmistakable from anywhere.
I think that, either for strong or weak folk, Courmayeur is the very best place' I know of for making a long stay at; the walks and excursions are inexhaustible, there are any amount of grand things to do for mountaineers, and lovely little easy walks, as short as you like,
MOUNTAINEERING CIVILITIES.
Ill for mere invalids.
Valleys and gorges fork and re-fork in all directions.
Another advantage is that it lies on a gentle slope some little height above the noisy, foaming
Dora, and so one has not the perpetual roar which I always think the greatest drawback to Swiss enjoyment.
If the rivers would but go to sleep at night, what a relief it would be!
I certainly have not been so well for years, and except for some wakeful nights I-should have done the whole tour without flagging at all.
Saturday, 5.30 p.m.
Cuapiu.
We have got off at last ; it was not at all hopeful yesterday, and I began the day rather anxiously (as I should really have been in a fix if we could not have left till Monday), and there was the clearest, most transparent, dawn sky imaginable; not a cloud; and a delicious north wind, which is an infallible sign of first-rate weather.
We got off exactly at five, in great spirits, as the views must be first-rate on such a morning, and the cool wind would make walking very easy.
As we passed our old hotel, we found a caravan of about eighteen mules and nearly as many guides, as all the Italians pensioning there were going up the Col de la
Seigne forthe day.
We hastened on, as we of course did not want to be mixed up, and succeeded in keeping ahead the whole way, five hours, though we were alternately on foot and they all riding, and got to the top just before them.
We chose our spot to lunch, and they camped at a little distance with many bows and " Bon appetits !" and other small foreign civilities, as they passed us,
When we had finished and were moving off, they shouted to us to stay, and all rose and came to us offering us wine and fruit, and saying they wished to propose a toast
MEMORIALS OF F. R. #.
and drink with us before we left.
It was far too gracefully done to refuse ; so red wine was poured, and all raised a most cordial 'Vive Angleterre!" with great enthusiasm and clinking of glasses, to which we responded with a 'Viva l Italia!" which seemed to please them.
Then an old priest said, "'Mesdemoiselles, étes vous catholiques?
Viva Roma!" to which I replied -in Italian, 'We can at least say, Viva Roma capitale ad'
Ltalia !" which response he quite understood and said, " Ah well, ah well, viva Christianity," to which we of course responded con amore.
Then two or three more (probably freethinkers, I'm afraid) said, "Oui bien, but no more Popery"; and two or three similar exclamations, at which we were very rauch astonished, as at least three priests were in the party.
'Then we were allowed to depart, with no end of hat wavings and good wishes.
We were.so taleen by surprise with the whole thing, and all passed so quickly, and so many rapid exclamations and vivas firing off in French and Italian, that I was quite sorry afterwards that I had not recollected all quite distinctly.
It was such a curious little episode, and occurring too at such a superb spot, and close to the cross which marks the boundary and bears on one side
"Trance" and on the other "Italia."
We reached Chapiu at two, having only been eight hours in actual progress, as we stayed nearly an hour on the col, as we hoped it might be possible to put on steam and get over the Col de Bonhomme this afternoon, and thereby be yet able to do Chamounix.
But we found that, owing to the great snow, it would take five hours from Chapiu, and that a/7 on foot, as a mule could not go at all; so we were obliged to give it up, (though feeling quite
CHRISTMAS DAY.
"493 equal to it,) as the guide said we could not do it before dark, and it would not do to risk that.
So we have put up here for Sunday, at a funny little inn, many miles from any village.
It has been a glorious day, as clear as crystal, almost too clear, as it rather takes from the sublimity, the summits look so near.
We passed the Lac de Combat, an exquisitely soft-tinted lake, pearly blue (but less intense than Geneva), reflecting a grand and lovely group of snow summits and ridges, more like a fairy fancy than a reality in its unique loveliness.
That lake was red in Napoleon's days, and a wretched garrison was kept freezing there four whole winters, guarding the pass at the boundary.
The ruins of their rough fortifications are reflected in one corner, a melancholy contrast.
The col is 8450 feet high, but the ascent was unusually gradual, and we were as fresh when we got to the top as when we started.
But then we had ignominiously descended to having a mule between us: so it was only two hours and a half walking foreach.
There is no post at all here, but any chance guide or traveller takes letters on to Bourg St. Maurice !
We pass on to Christmas Day of this year, 1871; which was spent at Leamington, and in connection with which she writes to her old friend as follows.
(Zo E. C.) .
.Christmas has as much of pain as of joy in it now, more perhaps, and yet one would not blot out the memories which cause the pain.
I have found this I
MEMORIALS OF F. R.H.
second return home after my dear father's death fully as trying as the first...
.° .
One or two pet schemes are defeated; but let me rather dwell on Christmas mercies, and much that can infinitely satisfy one's cravings.
Subsequent ill health obliged Frances to give up much pleasant work, and especially the training of the St. Paul's voluntary choir, which had been committed to her.
But (she writes) "when a disappointment comes in that way it must be His appointment!"
(Jo M. W.) .
Iam stopped in every attempt at consecutive work.
It has for years been special discipline to me, because I am naturally fond of going through with a thing, and have always had a strong yearning for definite settled work.
Yet I have never been permitted anything but desultory work ; either ailments or something beyond my own control has always interfered ever since I was about twenty.
Margaret, is it that He cannot trust me with any work for Him, even after all these years?
Ihave been feeling very down, and I hope really humbled ; it seemed rather marked, His not letting me write at all this year; and, now, taking away all work from me seems another sentence of the same lesson.
I feel such a "cumberer," every one doing more and better than myself.
Pray for me, that I may really learn all Heisteachingme.
LIVING, AND WRITING.
II5 (Zo the same.) I am always getting surprises at my own stupidity !
Why could not I have seen that lovely trio of texts?
This only confirms my strong belief that if I am to write to any good, a great deal of "ving must go toa very little writing, and that this is why I have always been held back from writing a tithe of what I wanted to write; and I see the wisdom of it,
CHAPTER VHL (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 John1. 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, eh so different in character, that it no more suffers after Switzerland than a forget-me-not beside arose.
My sister has the scent of a Red Indian for good old widow women and people needing consolation.
P.S.—Isaiah xlviii. 17: do suck all the honey out of this full and sweet text.
QUIET RESTING-PLACES.
(Zo E. C) PEN-Y-GURYD, July 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 rst.
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 or next!
I am glad you were at the Mildmay Conference.
I did so want to go, but dear mother so strongly advised me of 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 fhat.
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
MEMORIALS OF F. R. fl,
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 ze 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."
EXTRACTS.
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 Iam 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 themcomfortless?
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?"
"Tt 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
MEMORIALS OF F. R. H.
mercies Aositive; but what an almost infinite field there is for mercies negative!
We cannot even imagine all that God has suffered us of to do, of to be."
"©...
Did you ever hear of any one being very much used for Christ who did not have some sfecéal waiting time, some complete upset 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 sow 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. xxvil. 12.) Hence, individual love and
SWITZERLAND ONCE MORE.
Tat 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 ove,' 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 wearied 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 instant-
MEMORIALS OF F.R.H.
aneous 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 x 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
WORK AND PRAISE.
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 VV.) 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. Iam 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!
Ob, 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.,
MEMORIALS OF F. R. 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 reach 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 in a letter from N a tiny book with the title "All for Jesus..* She réad—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 her experience was not up to the standard of full consecration and spiritual power, or 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 * 6¢ All for Jesus!"
§S. W. Partridge & Co,
THE WANT SATISFIED.
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 decug 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 £eep 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 zt all, and I HAVE the blessing."
The "sunless ravines" were now for ever passed, and henceforth her peace and joy flowed onwards,
* 1 John i. 7.
MEMORIALS OF F. R. LH.
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
THE HIGHWAY OF HOLINESS.
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."
"Yes," she rejoined, "just so.
Still, I see there can be the venewal 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 Maria,— .
» .
Certainly your letters have filled me with
MEMORIALS OF F. R. HH.
gladness and thanksgiving.
Loving thanks to Mr. Shaw for his message.
I have long wanted co explain to you and others in writing (which is easier to me to be ¢céear in, than in conversation, with its natural interruptions) what I see as to the subject which to me was undoubtedly the portal into a happy life.
As to "perfectionism" or " sinlessness,"
I have 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 because really sinning ; and that it is ony 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 a7 sin"?
"All" is al/; 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///
EXPLANATORY LETTER.
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 omnipotence.
Where is the line to be drawn, beyond which He is mot "able"?
The very kecfing 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 God 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 a the fiery darts of the wicked ";
" He is able to make a// 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, "your need"; 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
MEMORIALS OF F.R. A.
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 w/ata need is this!
And it is said '' He shaW@ 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 they 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 Ais captain ts 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
LXPIANATORY LETTER,
13! i 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 ¢oward the mark, for the prize of the high cailing of God in Christ
Jesus."
Frances wrote to her friend J—— K—— :
Isend you my own New Year's motto and message.
MEMORIALS OF F R. 11.
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 beena year of unprecedented blessing to me.
I think you will see this in '' From Glory unto Glory."
So now will you JOIN NIC IN Praise, sx.
6s ive 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
SINGING FOR YESUS.
converted but not rejoicing Christians.
He gave me the prayer, "Lord, give me a@/Z/ in this house!"
And He just d@id@/ Before I left the house every one had gota 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.
I was at a large regular London party Lialy, and I was so mepey. He semed to give me " the secret of His presence," and of course Isang "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 gzzte easily drifted from the badinage with which he started into a rightdown personal talk about /zs personal danger and his
MEMORIALS OF F. R. HW.
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, I 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 fowch 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 ov/y 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,
NOT A FEAR, OR DOUBT, OR CARE.
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.
I 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 Hever experienced yet.
Two months afterwards she writes:
March 19, 1874.
DEAR Mr. W——,
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 haye not had the least stir of music in my mind since
MEMORIALS OF F. R. H.
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 "FR. 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 mea bright Ze 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
VMN MEMORANDA.
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.
MEMORIALS OF F. R. H.
"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 "7s praise, to Hm, 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
MORE OPEN DOORS.
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!"
"Yes; 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 in to 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 tinie 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 vest here, but somehow there always seems to be too much to do, Such a very nice 'open door" is set before me that I:
MEMORIALS OF F. R. #.
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.
E 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 strength.
3) DearmiG , 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.
Ihave 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 lovingkindness 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."
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.
CHAPTER< 1x,
(1874.) Circula: letters — Sunset on the Faulhorn — Ormont Dessus — Interruptions to poems—Other work done—'"' Little Pillows," etc: — Swiss singing — That great transfer —- A musical reverie — Return to England — Bright work and results.
E give extracts from F.-R. Hs circular letters on her journey to Switzerland in 1874, with her niece Constance Crane, other friends (Elizabeth, Margaret, and Bessie) joining in their mountain excursions.
"Sunset on the Faulhorn!"
All day there had been strange rifts in the clouds, and sudden pictures of peaks or of abysses framed in white and grey; but towards seven o'clock the wind rose, and there was a grand outpour of colour upon everything, sky, clouds, and mountains.
Imagine yourself midway between heaven and earth, the sharp point of rock on which we stood hardly seeming more of earth than if we had been in a balloon, the whole space around, above, and below filled with wild, weird, spectral clouds, driving and whirling in incessant change and with tremendous rapidity ; horizon mone, but every part of where horizon should be, crowded with unimaginable shapes of unimagined colours, with rifts of every shade of blue, from indigo to pearl, and burning with every tint of fire, from gold to intensest red; shafts
SUNSET WONDERS.
of keen light shot down into abysses of purple thousands of feet below, enormous surging masses of grey hurled up from beneath, and changing in an instant to glorified brightness of fire as they seemed on the point of swallowing up the shining masses above them; then, all in an instant, a wild grey shroud flung over us, as swiftly passing and leaving usin a blaze of sunshine; thena bursting open of the very heavens, and a vision of what might be celestial heights, pure and still and shining, high above it all; then, an instantaneous cleft in another wild cloud, and a revelation of a perfect paradise of golden and rosy slopes and summits; then, quick gleams of white peaks through veilings and unveilings of flying semi-transparent clouds ; then, as quickly as the eye could follow, a rim of dazzling light running round the edges of a black castle of cloud, and flaming windows suddenly pierced in it; oh, mother dear, I might go on for sheets, for it was never twice the same, nor any single minute the same, in any one direction.
At one juncture a cloud stood still, apparently about 200 yards off, and we each saw our own shadows gigantically reflected on it, surrounded by a complete rainbow arch, but a full circle of bright prismatic colours, a transfiguration of our shadows almost startling, each moreover seeing only their own glorification!
When the whole pageant, lasting nearly an hour, was past, we sang " Abide with me," and then the dear old joyous " Glory to Thee, my God."
Ormont Dessus, September, This second month of my Swiss journey is altogether different from the first, for now I am making writing the first thing instead of idleness.
Iam doing it quite in
MEMORIALS OF F. R. 12.
moderation, and taking plenty of fresh air as well; one can be out half the day and yet get four or five good hours writing as well, under these circumstances, when there are no other calls upon time or strength whatever ; and this combination of work and leisure is very delightful.
Besides, I feel as if I had got quite a fresh start with that month's rest ; it seems as if nature had then walked into my brain and taken possession (turning e out meanwhile), and given it a kind of spring cleaning! rubbing up the furniture, and fresh papering some of the rooms, and cleaning the windows!
That perpetual "moving on," which some so delight in, does not suit me nearly so well as staying in a place and taking it easy.
The weather has been so much colder and more variable, since I changed my tactics, that the two things coincided beautifully ; for, except two days, it has been too cold the last fortnight for any sitting out of doors.
I don't know why I always seem to shrink from writing much, or even anything, of the "under the surface" life, (which is so much more than the "on the surface" and the mere surroundings,) in my circulars. They would be much fuller if I told one tithe of the hourly bits of gentle guidance and clear lovingkindness which make the real enjoyment, or of the perpetual little opportunities of a "word for Jesus" which He seems to give me, and often of real work for Him, which yet seems to come so unsought, so easily and naturally, so altogether without any effort, as to be not felt to be any working at all.
Now I will give you an instance of how He took me at my word the other day.
It was one of the few warm days, and I established myself with pen and ink in' a shady nook by a little, steep, down-hill torrent.
I had
A CHANGE OF WORK.
suddenly got that sort of strong impulse to write on a certain theme, without which I never do my best, but with which I always do my best poems.
The theme was a grand one ("The Thoughts of God") ; I had thought of it for months, and never before had this impulse to begin upon it; though, once begun, I expected it to be one of my best poems. I spent a little time in prayer first, and then the warning and the promise in Jeremiah xv. 19 came strongly to my mind:
"if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as My mouth."
I felt that wanted looking into ; I wanted Him to take forth the precious from the vile for me, and to reveal and purge away, then and there, all the self and mingled motive which would utterly mar the work that I wanted to be for His glory.
After that the question came, was I—had He made me—just as willing to do any little bit of work for Him, something for little children or poor people, simple and unseen, as this other piece of work, which might win something of man's praise? Then, I was intensely happy in feeling that I could tell Him that I had no choice at all about it; but would really rather do just what He chose for me to do, whatever it might be.
However, there seemed nothing else to do, so I began my poem. I don't think I had written four lines when a labourer with a scythe came along a tiny path to drink at the stream a few yards below me.
He did not see me, and started when I hailed him and offered him a little book.
He climbed up to receive it, and then, instead of departing as I expected, deliberately sat down ona big stone at my feet, and commenced turning over the leaves, and evidently laying himself out to be talked to.
So here was clearly a little call; and I talked to him for some L
MEMORIALS OF F. R. #1.
time, he being very interested and responsive.
Just as he was going to move off, two lads, of about fifteen and eighteen, his sons, came crashing through the bushes ; I don't recollect whether the father beckoned them or not, anyhow up they came, and he quietly sat down again,
_and they sat down too, and seemed quite as willing to listen to the 'old, old story" as he had been; only I could not get so much out of them.
At last the whole crew departed, and I was just collecting my thoughts and reviving the aforesaid "impulse," when in about ten minutes the younger lad reappeared, with his sister, a girl of about seventeen.
They did not say a word, but scrambled straight up to me, and, seating themselves at my feet, looked up into my face, saying by their look as plain as any words, " Please talk to us!"
What could one do but accede! and they stayed at least another half hour, so quiet and interested that one could not but hope the seed was falling on '' good ground."
'The girl, Félicie, was more communicative than the lads, very simple, but intelligent.
By the time they departed a good part of the morning was gone, and the "impulse" too! but I enjoyed the morning probably twice as much as if I had done a good piece of my poem; and it seemed so clear that the Master had taken me at my word, and come and given me this to do for Him among His "little ones," and that He was there hearing and answering and accepting me, that it was worth any amount of poem-power.
However, zex¢ day the " impulse" came again, which is by no means always the case when once interrupted ; and once fairly started, I have worked out what I chink is perhaps the best poem I ever wrote, so far as I can judge,
But this is only one of constant instances which I
CA DIVING BRIGHISREALLT V1»
could tell.
I do so feel that every hour is distinctly and definitely guided by Him.
I have taken Him at His word zz everything, and He takes me at my word iz everything.
_Oh, I can say now that Jesus zs "to me a living bright Reality," and that He really and truly és
"more dear, more intimately nigh, than e'en the sweetest earthly tie."
No friendship could be what I find His to be.
I have more now than a few months ago, even though I was so happy then ; for the joy of giving myself, and my will, and my all to Him seems as if it were succeeded, and even superseded, by the deeper joy of a conscious certainty that He has ¢aen all that He led me to give ; and "I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him": so, having entrusted my very trust to Him, I look forward ever so happily to the future (¢f there be yet much of earthly future for me) as "one vista of brightness and blessedness."
Only I do so want everybody to " taste and see,"
Yesterday I somehow came to a good full stop in my writing much earlier than I expected, and asked what He would have me do next, go on, or go out at once? Just then a young lady came in; "Had I just a few minutes to spare?"
So I went out with her at once.
She had overheard a short chat I had had some days ago with another, didn't know waé, but it had sét her longing for something more than she had got.
She had started out for a walk alone, thinking and praying, and the thought came to her to come straight to me, which she seemed to think an unaccountably bold step.
Well, God seemed to give me exactly the right message for her, just as with Miss M last week, the two cases starting from a very different level but the result the same, a real turning point.
MEMORIALS OF F. R. #1.
Don't conclude, however, from these that I am always seeing results, because I am not; but that I am entirely content about, just as He chooses it to be.
It has occurred to me that, as I profess to be '' writing," you will expect a new book as the result, and will be disappointed ; so I tell you simply what I Zave written, and what I am going to write.
"Our Swiss Guide."
Article for Sunday Magazine, on the spiritual analogies in all sorts of little details of mountaineering.
'"'For Charity."
Song for Hutchings and Romer.
"Enough."
Short sacred poem.
" How much for Jesus?"
<A sort of little true story for children ; for an American edition.* "True Hearted."
New Year's Address (in verse) for Y.W.C. A., for January 1875.
"Tiny Tokens."
A small poem for Good Words.
'Precious Things."
A poem.
"A Suggestion."
Short paper for Home Words.
"The Precious Blood of Jesus."
A hymn.
"The Thoughts of God."
The aforesaid poem.
"Shining for Jesus."
Verses addressed to my nieces and nephews at Winterdyne.
"New Year's Wishes," by Caswell's request, for a very: pretty card, These are all written, and copied, and done with.
Next week, D.V., I set about what I have long wanted * This manuscript we have no clue to; any information cencerning it would be acceptable.
WORK AND REST.
— to do: 'Little Pillows," thirty-one short papers as a little book for children of, say, twelve years old ; a short, easily recollected text, to go to sleep upon for each night of the month, with a page or two of simple practical thoughts about it, such as a little girl might read every night while having her hair brushed.
I think this will take me about a fortnight to write and arrange for press ; adding probably a verse or two of a hymn at the end of each of the little papers.
There are lots of little monthly morning and evening books for grown up people, but I don't know of one for children except those containing only texts.
I dare say I shall get in somehow three other little poems that want writing (being on the simmer) : 'The Splendour of God's Will," "The Good
Master," and (don't be startled at the transition) " Playthings"; also " Johann von Allmen," a little article for the Dayspring.
I can clear off things easily here, especially through not having so many letters.
If I could manage three months every year in a Swiss or Welsh valley, I should keep my printer going.
Ormont DeEssus, September 29, 1874.
Dearest MOTHER,— I don't know whether there is enough of interest for a final circular.
Not being sure of your address, the last went to Maria.
The last week at the Ormont Dessus the weather was perfect, and, without being unpleasantly hot, was warm enough for sitting out not merely in the sunshine but in the moonlight too. Sunday was one of the most exquisite days imaginable, brilliantly clear, the autumn tints throwing in touches of crimson and gold in splendid contrast to the pine woods, and
MEMORIALS OF F. R. 7,
(what is so rare in Switzerland) the noon and afternoon as glowing as the morning, everything vivid all day. At the little French service I soon saw we had "' somebody" in the pulpit, and it was M. de Pressensé, who is, I have been told, one of the first French orators.
His sermon was both eloquent and good.
The people sing beautifully, a downright treat, in German choral style as to rausic, slow rich harmonies that bear dwelling on; one tune was Cassel, No. tg0 in '"' Havergal's Psalmody."
It was such sweet singing, every one keeping to cres. and dim., neither instrument nor apparently any stated choir, but all the parts correctly sung by the congregation of peasants.
I have finished not only "Little Pillows," but a little companion to it for morning use,
"Morning Bells"; both manuscripts are ready for press.
I do not think it is nearly so easy to write for children as for adults ; constantly I refrained from what I would most like to say about the texts, because it would not be simple enough for the little ones.
I have purposely avoided any stories or anecdotes, lest children should skim the book through in search of them, instead of reading them night and morning steadily.
At least I know that is what I should have done!
I do so hope these books will be really helpful to some of His little ones.
Jamso sorry that I shall not see Miss Whately at Montreux ; I have a nice letter from her; she has been delayed in England.
You ask me how I am, dearest mother.
Very well indeed; those pleasant mountain ascents with Constance were delightful.
She is a first rate Alpinist, and we both enjoyed getting over crevasses and glissading.
Since then I have done nothing to tire myself, and in every way have set health
A MUSICAL
VISION.
first; I do wish to be very prudent, only by prudence I don't mean idleness.
I sought to gain health and strength, that I might use iton my return.
I had a short conversation with two respectable men from West Bromwich, who had been for a Swiss holiday with Cook's tickets.
They applied to me to interpret something for them, and this led to a little talk which drifted as usual into better things, and I found a decided response.
I had alluded to Christ's. finished work for us, when one of them answered quietly, 'Yes, it's a transfer, that's the word.
The last three days I have had that word always in my mind ; that's just what it is, a transfer, He takes our sins and makes over to us His righteousness." Then he told me that he had met on the Rigi an invalid Irish clergyman, who seemed full of that one thing; that he began telling him of Christ's finished work and he ended withit.
'And I never saw it so clearly before, though I've been, so to say, looking about for it this long time ; it was worth all my journey to get hold of this truth.
It seemed curious that such an excellent clergyman should be obliged to give up his living from ill health and ordered abroad; but he was sowing the seed in fifty places instead of one.
Yes, that great transfer!
It's blessed !"
Was it not a nice instance of the real use of such seed sowing ?
; .
In the train I had one of those curious musical visions, which only very rarely visit me.
I hear strange and very beautiful chords, generally full, slow and grand, succeeding each other in most interesting sequences.
I do not invent them, I could not; they pass before my mind, and I only listen.
Now and then
MEMORIALS OF F, R.
my will seems aroused when I see ahead how some fine resolution might follow, and I seem to w/7 that certain chords should come, and then they do come; but then my will seems suspended again, and they go on quite independently.
It is so interesting, the chords seem to Sold over each other and die away down into music of infinite softness, and then they w#fold and open out, as if great curtains were being withdrawn one after another, widening the view, till, with a gathering power and intensity and fulness, it seems as if the very skies were being opened out before one, and a sort of great blaze and glory of music, such as my outward ears never heard, gradually swells out in perfectly sublime splendour.
This time there was an added feature:
I seemed to hear depths and heights of sound beyond the scale which human ears can receive, keen, far-up octaves, like vividly twinkling starlight of music, and mighty, slow vibrations of gigantic strings going down into grand thunders of depths, octaves below anything otherwise appreciable' as musical notes.
Then, all at once, it seemed as if my soul had got a new sense, and I could see this inner music as well as hear it; and then it was like gazing down into marvellous adysses of sound, and up into dazzling regions of what, to the eye, would have been light and colour, but to this new sense was sound,
Wasn't it odd!
It lasted perhaps half an hour, but I don't know exactly, and it is very difficult to describe in words.
The long letter ends with:
I wish you had seen and heard the welcome my cousins gave me!
It was so nice, and altogether I am so
"ANOTHER BROUGHT!"
well and happy!
It was curious, dearest mother, that you should send me Psalm cili. 1-3, for my mind was specially full of it, only adding verses 4and5.
I have so very much to thank Him for, and the beautiful sequence of five blessings seemed to sum it all up: ' forgiveth," "healeth," "redeemeth," "crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies," and " satisfieth thy mouth with good things."
And, really, I may add "so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's," for I feel so mentally fresh and unweary, and my cousins say they never saw me looking so well.
Hoping soon to reach home, herewith ends the circular series of 1874!
Your very loving child.
Returning from Switzerland in perfect health, much could be told of her active work.
We are glad to be permitted to give one result of a visit, before returning home to Leamington, as a representative of many others.
DEAR MARIA,—
This is zof acircular.
Just pray for all here. is first-fruits! full and joyous decision for Christ, singularly tested and acted on at once.
I knew she was not happy.
When alone, I asked why she should let days and weeks go by, drifting away in the cold. I told her I should leave her room after praying, and begged her to remain praying alone, and surrender her whole self to the Lord Jesus.
By and by, the time came for her music practising.
There was a ringingness in her touch, playing with such joyance.
Presently, I
MEMORIALS OF Ff, R.
went in and just put my arm round her:
"Is it for Jesus?"
"Yes, I've made up my mind, it is a// for Jesus!"
Every action spoke it, the smile and bright determination of her voice.
Without any suggestion from me she told her mamma, the next day, that she could no longer act in a French play at school.
Here was a test at once.
We told her to "pray about it and trust."
The governess was astonished at her decision, and the girls still more so.
So the good confession was made, and she took her stand on the Lord's side at once, in a way which is areal crossing of the Rubicon at school.
T never talk to girls about "giving up."
I sent my sister the address of a young stranger, thinking that a visit would comfort her, and knowing how loyally she accepted work, but not knowing how inconvenient and pressing it would be.
DeEarEST Marir,— I felt tempted to the old sense of pressure with your request, and cannot really possibly manage either of the calls you suggest, without getting totally overdone; that I can't feel would be right.
I know you will approve, for you and I always understand each other.
Then follows the characteristic postscript :
I have thought it over, and decide to telegraph to your friend to meet me at Willesden Station on my journey home, and I could stay an hour at the station with her.
It will be well worth azy fatigue if I can comfortiher.,
CAE TER. Xx,
(1874—1875.) A dark enigma— Typhoid fever — "' Waiting at the golden gates"
— Coming back from them — Winterdyne — Relapse — Oakhampton — The ministry of kind servants — Return to work
— Letters — Gleams — Whitby — 'Reality!' — The old friend's letter — Kindness of friends.
" Wuart though to-day Thou canst not trace at all the hidden reason For His strange dealings through the trial season,
Trust and obey !
Though God's cloud-mystery enfold thee here, In after life and light @// shall be plain and clear."
N the latter part of this year (1874) came one of the strange enigmas of her life, stranger to our weaker faith than to her own implicit trust.
Somehow or somewhere she caught fever, and commenced her homeward journey with dull headache and sickness.
But she did not fail in that loving care for the stranger to whom reference was made on the preceding page; and, through some mistake on her not arriving at Willesden, Frances waited an hour and a half, and then took her in the train some miles on her journey, that she might
MEMORIALS OF F, R. H.
not forego the promised interview.
This testimony was received after the conversation : " Oh, if I could only feel as she looked; your sister Frances was so young and lovely, and I am glad I saw for once that God-satisfied face.
A ray of hope came as she talked to me in the train.
Home was reached, shiverings and feverish symptoms rapidly set in, and she was soon utterly prostrate with typhoid fever, All that motherly watchfulness, medical skill, and trained nursing could do failed to arrest the attack.
About the middle of November the balancings of our hopes and fears were just between life and death.
Prayer was made unceasingly for the life so dear to us, and even special prayer meetings were held to plead for one known so widely, though principally by her writings.
Our prayers and cries and tears were answered, and our beloved one was restored.
Some weeks after she told me many things which may be profitable to others.
" All through my long illness I was very happy ; the first part was the most painful, I think it must have been neuralgia with the fever.
I don't really think I was impatient deep down in my heart, and yet the pain and agony I was in made me anxious for the poultices, and to try anything.
Ido think I am sensitive to pain, and what was agony to me would be slight to others.
CONVERSE IN THE VALLEY.
one wish was to glorify God and to let my doctor and nurse see it ; so at the very first I determined to ask for nothing and just odey.
Nothing could exceed dear mother's kindness and tenderness to me day and night, and getting everything I wished for.
For some time, even in those bright days in the Ormont Dessus, I had a presentiment that, may be, my faith would be tried, and that my Father would not leave me without chastisement.
Not that I think illness such a trial as many others I have gone through; oh, it's nothing to wmseen trials!
Besides, you get such sympathy in illness, and I knew many would pray for me.
Only, I did zo¢ want them to pray that I might get well at all.
Sometimes I could not guite see His Face, yet there was His promise 'J will never leave thee.'
I knew He said it and that He was there."
M. "Had you any fear at all to die?"
Ff. "Oh no, not a shadow.
It was on the first day of this illness I dictated to Constance, 'Just as Thou wilt,
O Master, call!'"
M. "Then, was it delightful to think you were going home, dear Fan?"
F. "No, it was not the idea of going home, but that He was coming for me and that I should see my King.
I never thought of death as going through the dark valley or down to the river; it often seemed to me a going up to the golden gates and lying there in the brightness, just waiting for the gate to open forme.
...
I never before was, so to speak, face to face with death.
It was like a look into heaven ; and yet, when my Father sent me back again, I felt it was His will, and so I could not be disappointed."
MEMORIALS OF F. R. 1.
About the middle of January (1875) change of air was recommended, and I brought her to Winterdyne.
I remember that, just as we were assisting her into the carriage at our Leamington home, the telegram came with the almost sudden news of our
— dear brother Henry's death, but it was thought right not to tell her till the journey was over.
Only a few days passed of comparative recovery, when a relapse set in, and she was again ill for many weeks, * It -was really delightful work to nurse one so patient, so thankful, so considerate ; and, when it seemed needful to relieve the servants, and send for a nurse, they pleaded to be let sit up in turn with "dear Miss Frances,"
Turning to my notebook I find some recollections which may be given.
January 29, 1875.
Sitting by dear Frances she said to me, "Isn't He gracious not to send me so severe an attack as in November? I felt sure the night I was shivering that illness was coming again; and, as I lay down, the sweet consciousness that I was just lying down in His dear hand was so stilling."
"Marie, do you think this simile holds good, that when we cast our burden on the Lord, at our jst prayer He cuts the strings that bind it on us; then, if we give a leap, the burden will slide off, and we shall not go on toiling with it up the hill!
I mean, if we just
CHASTENED, BUT CHERISHED.
thanked and praised Him, at once the burden would be clean gone !"
Mf. "Were you thinking of the burden of sin, dear?"
£. "Yes, and other burdens; specially aggravations of things that you have no strength to bear."
M. "JT suppose if He is carrying ws, then He carries our burdens too."
F. "Yes, that was our text last night, 'I will carry'; if carried, no weight on us at all."
M. "TJ think carrying is His first and last act; when He finds the lost sheep He lays it on His shoulder and just carries it a// the way, even zzto His fold above.
It will be nice to see Him, Fan!"
& "* Nice, I like that; but I never heard any one but . you say it just like that, except Mary She once told me of a missionary and his wife who had reached the end of their voyage to New Zealand, and were to have landed that night but were prevented ; a sudden cyclone arose, and the ship went down instantaneously.
Mary added, 'Was it not nice?'"* [See page 392.] My dear sister always enjoyed the early morning air for a few minutes, and often we had sweet talks before the break of day, and then she would get a little sleep.
Sunday, February 1, I found her very exhausted, and moaning with pain.
She said: "No sleep last night, Marie.
'The Master wants me to bring forth more fruit, * "© Nice, nice, nice indeed!" were the last words of Fanny
Bickersteth.
See '' Doing and Suffering."
MEMORIALS OF F. R. 4H.
more patience."
I said: "The Husbandman must be very zear when He is pruning the branch, and He is the God of patience."
That's nice."
Another morning I said:
"I will give you your Morning Bell, 'Thou hast given me the shield of Thy salvation.'"
Ff. "His shield is the biggest and brightest!
I want you to ask some of His praying people to pray for me ; it's not I suppose a question of recovery, but that it may be blessed and sanctified to me.
But I know the Lord Jesus is praying for me."
M, "Yes, and He prays even Jefore the trial or temptation comes to us, as He said to Peter, 'But I have prayed for thee.'"
/. "And He must have presented all those intercessions for Peter before they heard him knocking at the door."
After some days Frances was so extremely ill, that we telegraphed for our mother to come to Winterdyne.
Remarking to Frances that dear mother was so wise, and that I could always trust her judgment in illness, she added, "Yes, and such watchfulness and handiness too."
When our dear mother arrived Frances said, "I am trusting Him for every bit of the way."
Mother. "Yes, dear, and He will not bring us by the right way and then leave us in the midst."
F. "But perhaps the vessel won't get in just the tack she expects to."
SLOW RECOVERY.
After the feverish attack had passed, she suffered very much from supervening results; but even when in acute pain would say lively things, to divert our thoughts from herself.
The servants were indeed astonished at her cheerful patience; and I well remember a remark she made to me:
" Oh, Marie, if I might but have five minutes ease from pain!
I don't want ever to moan when gentle sister Ellen comes in.
How Iam troubling you all!"
M. "But, Fan! we should not think it trouble to minister to the Lord Jesus!"
F. "Well no, I only hope relationship won't preclude a big 'inasmuch' for you all."
"«.
, It's no mistake, Marie, about the blessing God sent me December 2, 1873; it is far more distinct than my conversion, I can't date that, Iam always happy, and it is such peace; I could not help smiling when my kind doctor said, 'I dare say you feel rather depressed.'
I said: 'No indeed! quite happy, only tired and want to be quiet.'
Of course I should like to be at work, and it seems strange how often I am hindered from it.
You are always pegging away; but I like to think I shall serve Him up there, and I would rather serve than rest.
The work I should so like to take up is drawing-room Bible readings ; I so enjoyed one
I took down at Bocking, but was rather startled to see the good folks taking notes!
You see, I had M
MEMORIALS OF F. R. £72.
just overcome the nervousness I used to feel, and I could so trust about this also."
Another day Frances said:
"I think my special anticipation of heaven is seeing the Lord Jesus exalted, glorified, vindicated, reigning King of kings, and all His enemies owning Him."
MM, "Have you thought that as, in the Gospels, Christ's special manifestations were to people when alone, so when we first see Him in heaven it will be alone?"
F, "Yes, and that is most beautifully brought out in Mr. Bickersteth's ' Yesterday, To-day, and For ever,' it's the very gem of the book.
When I read it, and came to where the angel leaves him waiting for the King to come, I almost trembled as I.turned the page; for, if Mr. B. had treated it with a light hand, it would have been profane ; but it's lovely."
"T have been thinking, Marie, how much more God gives me than I need.
Look at this illness !
Well, except the bearing it, there is no other sting in it.
I feel illness is the least trial, and it comes so directly from the hand of God.
And how kind they all are to me!
Winterdyne always seems to me a sort of millennial household!"
Her recovery was extremely slow, but her room was the brightest in the house.
At last she
RETROSPECT.
was carried downstairs, but for some time used crutches.
Needlework for the Zenana Missions was a great enjoyment to her.
Sitting by her one day she told me her reasons for giving up singing at the Philharmonic.
"It is a long time ago that I made the choice of singing sacred music only, I did so some months before I wrote:
'Take my lips, and let me sing, Always, only, for my King.'
I was visiting at Perry Villa when Dr. Marshall sent me the programme of the next Kidderminster concert, and strongly urged me to sing the part of Jezebel in the 'Elijah, saying that he could not depend on any one else for it.
I knew I could do it; for once, at the practice, the doctor said I threw such life into it.
Mentioning it to Mr.
Snepp, he expressed surprise, and his words struck me : 'How cana Christian girl personate Jezebel ?'
So I thought about it, saw the inconsistency, and gave it up.
I think the last thing I sang in the hall was 'Come unto Him!' Then at Leamington, the first large party I went to, they asked me to sing, and I sang 'Whom having not seen ye love.'
Every one seemed astonished, and especially some Christian girls who had begun to think music could not be for the King's service, and were rather rebelling at their daily practice.
They had never
MEMORIALS OF F. R. H.
thought of consecrating their voices and fingers, but began from thenceforth.
I would advise any one thoroughly to master one song, make it part of yourself, throw your whole self into it, then pray it may be His message, and it will be all right.
For myself, I have more confidence in singing Scripture words than any 'other, because they are Hzs.
And, Marie dear, as I sing I am praying, too, that it may soothe or reach some one, though I may never know whom."
| "T have been resting lately on 'The Lord is my portion.'
All else is so unsatisfying, and even the best earthly gifts fail to reach the true depths of the heart.
I do so love that hymn: bo 'To Thee, O dear, dear Saviour, ce My spirit turns for rest.'
What could we do without Him in this lonely world of shadows?
And He will not let us do without Him!
And may we not reverently and wonderingly say, ' Neither can He do without us!'
> , '4 t His people are so entwined around His heart that it must be so.
"T have also been thinking that only the Holy Spirit can teach any one the mystery of 'the blood which cleanseth from all sin.
For years I believed it, without seeing as I do now into the mystery, and there are depths yet unseen, ii ee.
"y a | oer
"PERFECTLY SATISFIED."
which God's Spirit reveals as His work of sanctification goes on."
We are kindly allowed to insert two or three letters of this period.
WINTERDYNE, February 22, 1875.
Dear Mr.
I want to thank you for all your prayers for me.
Only, | only, have the prayers of my dear friends held me back from going to be with the Beloved One?
Or is it that He has some more little work for me to do, and so has only been richly answering all your prayers in the " perfect peace" in which He has kept me?
Oh, He has been'so tenderly gracious to me; it has been such gentle, faithful lovingkindness all through.
It seems worth even coming back from the very golden gates if I may but in some way ''tell of His faithfulness."
I do wish people would but trust Jesus out and out, and give themselves up utterly to Him ; and then wouldn't they find rest to their souls!
But it will be a long waiting time yet, "'at least six months" says my doctor, before I may write or do anything.
But now just see how wonderfully kind He is tome.
He has taken my will as I gave it to Him, and now I really am not conscious of even a wish crossing
His will concerning me.
I seem to be enabled to be PERFECTLY satisfied with whatever He chooses, and it is so nice.
This is all of Him, otherwise I should fidget and kick!
Somehow, of late, I mean for many months, He seems not to have allowed the enemy to come near me.
From the hour my illness began I have only had one dark hour, and that was when I thought my special prayer, ''that this sickness might be for the glory of
MEMORIALS OF F. R. Ht.
God," had been denied, for I felt I had not " glorified Him in the fires," because, after I had lost all my strength, I could not bear the pain without moaning and crying out, and showing eagerness for remedies.
But He so tenderly assured me of pardon, and gave me "He knoweth our frame," that even that cloud soon passed.
In this second illness He has mercifully spared me any recurrence of such pain, only laying upon me discomfort enough to exercise the patience which has perhaps been
His chief lesson for me.
Perhaps you and other dear friends will be disappointed.
I know you expect that the Master will give me new and fuller messages for others after all this.
But I really do not know what He has been teaching me; I do not seem conscious (at present) of having gained anything for others; it has been just lying fallow.
For myself I feel as if it had intensified my trust; I do trust Him utterly, and feel as if I could not help trusting Him; it seems to "' come natural" now!
And "I will fear zo evil" seems a natural sequence; what should I fear?
There is no terror in anything when "safe in the arms of Jesus," and nothing can take me-out of them.
'The marvellous way in which God has inclined you especially, and others too, to pray for me does seem such a token of His incomprehensible love to me, that I see I need an eternity to praise Him to my heart's content!
Now, dear friend, I am asking Him that, somehow, and in His own time, He would graciously let me, even me, be the means of some new sweet blessing to you, perhaps to your people too, as a tiny return for all your loving prayers for me.
Do you think that the Lord does show unto His servants things which must shortly come to pass?
It was
BLESSED AND BLESSING.
so strange that, while perfectly well and strong in Switzerland, I had a constant presentiment that some form of physical suffering would be the next step in His dealings with me, that His loving wisdom would see it needful for me.
But I had not a vestige of fear or shrinking; I rather felt I could welcome it, if it might but make me more '' meet for the Master's use."
So I was not a bit surprised when the illness came.
How infinitely blessed it is to be entirely Christ's s! To think that you and I are never to have another care or another fear, but that Jesus has undertaken simply everything for us!
And isn't it grand to have the privilege of being His instruments?
It does seem such loving condescension that He should use us.
I don't know when I shall get downstairs; much too weak as yet.
But I am in no hurry, He will give me strength at the right time.
Yours, ete., te, WINTERDYNE, /ebruary 1875.
Dear Mr. ——, Your letter came on the evening of a day of more than usual languor, after a bad night, and it was spiritual salvolatile to me!
Iam so glad to hear of your ten.
Many thanks for your remembrance of me on Wednesday evening, and for letting me have the pleasure of joining you.
Will you tell your "band" that God seemed to put it into my heart, in a very special way, to pray that they all might be soul-winners, and af once!
No waiting for further orders, they have got their commission zozv :
"let him that heareth say, Come!"
And I prayed long at Acts iv. 29, 30, for them; "grant unto Thy servants," etc.
But there must be power from on high,
MEMORIALS OF F. R. A.
or they are helpless; and I asked that this might be given, Then, I think the Master gave me a special text for them, will you ask them to take it each one as from Him: " Behold I give you power over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you."
Why, it is grand; "power over all the fower of the enemy!"
Just where he is strongest, there they shall prevail ; not over his weak points and places, but over the very focus of his power; not over his power here and there, or now and then, but over a// his power.
And Jesus said it!
Isn't it enough to go into any battle with!
And it is not future ; not "I we// give," but present, ow:
"TI give unto you,"
"unto you," to every one whom He sends out, to every one of your dear "ten," if they will but put out the hand of faith to take it.
One hardly seems to need any addition to this, and yet His tender love adds the personal assurance, "nothing shall by any means hurt you."
Nothing, really and absolutely nothing!
So there is not the least loophole left for the shadow of a fear to steal in.
No end to the promise, it won't leave off, good for every day and moment all along,
"till glory."
Now, with such a clear commission and such an inspiring promise, which of your " ten" will be content to let another day pass without an attack upon "the power of the enemy"?
When shall I hear of the victories that must follow?
You will tell me of them, won't you?
I want each one of your " ten" to begin at once to work out with God the fulfilment of Isaiah xlix. 25, so that numbers of captives may be delivered from the enemy, and led as blessed, willing, rejoicing captives in the triumph of Jesus Christ.
I should like also to send to your "loving F " "more than conquerors through
"© 4 GLORIOUS LIFE."
169.
» Him that loved us," and to your " little S Jeremiah i. 7.
Why, only think if he begins winning souls at fourteen, and goes straight on, (God sparing him,) what splendid sheaves he will have to lay at the Master's feet !
Will you ask them to send me a text for myself.
In what I have said I need hardly say I do not forget the other side, that "no man can come to Me except," etc. and so on ; but then is not the seeking and obtaining His power a proof that we are on the track of His purposes ?
"Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power," and it is only in '' Thy power" that we hope to succeed.
I rejoice in your joy in Him.
How good He is to us!
I never find that He fails to respond to trust; it is indeed " whatsoever" in its fulness.
And now I see that "able" means ad/e, and "all" means a/Z.
Do you not find that, even in proportion as we realize this marvellous power upon us and in us, we realize as never before our utter dependence upon it, and utter weakness without it, AND our utter vileness and sinfulness were the cleansing power of His precious blood withdrawn for one moment!
But why should we ever refuse to believe in its glorious fulness? (1 John i. 7.)
I keep wondering every day what new lovingkindness is coming next!
It is such a glorious life!
And the really leaving EVERYTHING to Him is so inexpressibly sweet, and surely He does arrange so much better than we could for ourselves, when we leave it all to Him.
(To J. Z. .) DEAR J
I realize, "Lord, I have given my life to Thee, and every day and hour is Thine."
For, literally, every hour
MEMORIALS OF F. R. M7.
seems in His hand, and filled with His work in some form or other, either preparation, actual service, or, as now, weakness and pain.
It is quite marvellous how He really seems answering my prayer that He would accept my whole life, down to its very moments.
It always seems to me the worst compliment possible to our dear Church of England, when a certain class of minds regard anything which has a little extra life, and love, and warmth, and glow, as being, well— suspicious / As if WE are never to ask, and never to expect, and never to ave any such extra blessing as He is pouring out in our very midst!
In April, 1875, it was thought desirable that my sister should try change of air; and on the 3rd the Winterdyne servants gathered round for farewell words, and she thanked them warmly for all their kindness, adding: "It was a great comfort, in my illness, the way in which you waited upon me; Isaw you never grudged the trouble I gave you ; z#at would have distressed me.
Remember, God's promises are for each of you; faith is just holding out your hand, and taking them.
It is what I am learning every day; it makes me happy, and I want all of you to be always happy, trusting in the Lord Jesus."
One inscription written in the books she gave them is: "Fanny Holloway, with the writer's warm thanks for her great kindness and atten-
CHANGE OF SCENE.
tion during her illness at Winterdyne, January to April, 1875. 'INASMUCH.' (Matt. xxv. 40.)"
A short drive to Oakhampton, and there all the comforts of her eldest sister's pleasant home awaited her.
Frances' constant consideration for the servants, wherever she visited, secured the most loving service.
Bible readings in the servants' halls, kind talks alone, and helpful prayers are all remembered.
The large reference Bibles she gave them are treasured remembrances of this visit.
She was delighted when every servant at Oakhampton joined the Christian Progress Union, , (To 7. TW) OAKHAMPTON, April 1875.
Dear Mr. W——, I see now! And the whole thing is brightened up splendidly!
I both meant myself, and took your remarks to apply, to "fallow" as to service and preparation for service; and so, while I read them with great interest and pleasure, I did not get the full benefit of them, because I said, "'Oh yes, but I am all right on this point!"
But I was all wrong on the point you aimed at, and by your second letter #74, I see that "lamenting" and "trusting" are not compatible; and that, while I fancied I was trusting for everything, I was not trusting as to His szritual dealings with me, and that I might rest as satisfied about this as about all else.
MEMORIALS OF F, R. LH.
Yes, I 'could not read His prescription," but I can now take it without trying to spell it.
I see that my growth in grace is A/7s affair, and that He is certainly taking care of it, even though I don't see it.
Only, I am so sorry I did not trust Him perfectly ; it makes me feel that I shall henceforth mistrust myself more than ever, and yet trust Him more than ever.
I am beginning to taste a little bit of the -real blessedness of waiting.
One does not wait alone, for He waits too.
Our waiting times are His also.
I have been so delighted with the two "waits" in Isaiah xxx, 18, surely it implies a fellowship of waiting.
(Zo the same.) April, 1875.
I must just begin a letter to you.
Intercourse, even by letter, with real and dear Christian friends, is one of the pleasures which one only s¢fs here, but don't you think it will be a great delight above?
I have been thinking how nice it will be to have a long talk with you in heaven, in the grand leisure of eternity, and interchange the blessed things which the Master will (I suppose) be showing and saying to each, with just as much individuality of revelation as here.
Perhaps I look forward to this peculiarly, because I have so very many congenial Christian friends whom I rarely see, and correspondents, known and unknown, with whom I cannot have the intercourse I would; and, owing to my delicate health, there have always been so many interruptions to communications, and of late so much entire isolation.
But I think you probably have the same keen anticipation, for you can't have time on earth
PATIENT ENDURANCE.
for much "sweet counsel"!
And how well we can afford to wait for some of our " good things" !
Nearly nine months, since I was last at morning family worship!
I was in almost zoo great spirits about it, which is not good for me, and of course I had to subside, and go and lie down for a considerable part of the morning ; still it was quite an epoch!
After four months' illness and weakness, I am told that I must not expect to be able for any sort of work for at least six months longer ; but I do not feel one regret.
Somebody wrote to me about resignation the other day ; but I don't feel as if the word suited at all; there is an wmdertone of "feeling it rather hard nevertheless" in it, of submitting to a will which is different from one's own.
He has granted me fully to veyozce in His will, I am not conscious of even a wish crossing it; I do really and altogether desire that His will may be done, whadever it is.
It was so sweet, when my second illness began, to lie down under His dear hand, not knowing how long or how much I might have to suffer, but perfectly happy and trustful about it, and gute satisfied that He should do with me just as He would.
Oh, isn't it good of Him to have wrought this forme!
This terrible pain,—I cannot feel that I w7sh it taken away a day sooner than His far-sighted faithful love appoints.
This morning I opened on Deuteronomy xxxii.
2, '"'My speech shall distil as the dew.'
It seemed a direct answer from Him, for one does not see the dew fall, one never sees it at all till morning, and then!
So perhaps He is speaking to me more than I think for, and, when the 'afterward " comes, it may be that I shall find He has said a gocd deal to me after ail !
Yours ever,
174,
MEMORIALS OF &. R. £1.
(Zo the same.) I find (having fairly tried) that the whole gift of verse is taken from me.
I think it will some day be restored (as once before after five years' suspension) ; but at present I could not write a hymn or poem.
Thus God proves to me it is directly from Him, not a power to be used at my will, but only when He will; and I would rather have it so.
But, even if I were in full vein, I only consciously write up to my own experience ; so, though I might write what you would like to see on "Rest and Brightness,"
I should have. to leave out praise for "power," because I do not feel that, as yet,
God has ever endued me with ¢zaz.
It is not 'come, see, and conquer," as to souls, with me as it is with you.
I know some of my words do not fall to the ground, but most of them do; and the blessing which He does seem to send with my printed writings, and sometimes with my letters, does not seem to me quite the same thing as the blessed "power" which some have.
That reminds me, this morning I read 2 Corinthians iv. in the Greek, and was so wonderingly happy over that "far more exceeding weight of glory." I had not specially noticed the Greek before, how magnificently far reaching and strong it is!
I suppose "from glory 40 glory" is even here and now, and ¢hen to go beyond this to an eternal weight of glory, and ¢hen for this to be kal trepBodiy cis irepBodny, is such a marvellous leading on of finite thought into infinite glory!
It is like those flights that one now and then takes from planets to suns, and suns to star systems and cycles, and then away to the farthest nebulz, and then one sees no end, for imagination and analogy go on
"WIHE DEAR OLD TRISH: SOCIETY,"
till they get lost in infinity.
But to think that we are actually going right zo all this glory, and have actually begun with it; having the earnest of the purchased possession zow, and absolute certainty of all of it before long!
What are flights among stars and nebule compared to this!
I have not thought it out, but I feel a connection between this and the Greek in Ephesians ili, 19.
(Zo J. G. M. Kirchhoffer.)
DEAR JULIA,—
May 9.
Thank you very much for your very pretty little ballad, and for the leaflets.
I shall watch your pen, if we live, with much interest, and pray that you may be enabled to consecrate it, always and entirely, to our beloved Master.
You will need to be very watchful, for Satan will try to sow tares among your wheat, and to introduce se/f into what we want to be on/y tor Christ.
But His grace is sufficient, and if He keeps you, by that grace, humble and looking unto Him, the gift He entrusts to you will be help to yourself, and I hope to many others, and the enemy will not be able to turn it into a hindrance.
I am so glad you have been at work already for the dear old Irish Society, and with such thorough good will. Will you make ita matter of prayer ?
It is often wonderful what unexpected opportunities God gives us when we ask, I have so often found it so in collecting for this very thing.
Your taking the card was an answer to myself, for I was feeling rather disheartened that day in the work, and prayed that I might have some extra bit of success at last, as a token for good.
And then you consented to collect, where I only looked for a
MEMORIALS OF F. R. 7.
single subscription.
I am afraid it will be, still, a long time before I come home, but I hope to see you and your kind friends when I do.
I send you one of my favourite texts, "He zs precious."
Think of the absolute "7s," always and unspeakably precious, whether we realize it or not.
How little we know of His preciousness yet, but how much there is to know, and how much we shall know!
Press on then to find more of His preciousness.
Yours affectionately.
(Extracts from Letters to Miss E. J. Whately.) Sune 1875.
» « « « Though I have had plenty of invalided times, and of short sharp suffering, this has been my very first experience of really severe and prolonged illness
(since October) ; and I do not merely think I ought to feel, but I po feel, that it was the crowning blessing of a year of unprecedented blessing and yet of many trials.
'Great is Thy faithfulness" shines on every day of it; and "I will fear no evil" is more than ever a very song tome.
It was as if, while laying His own dear hand ever so heavily upon me, He kept the enemy completely at a distance, and did not let him even approach me, encompassing me with a wall of fire.
For three or four weeks I was too prostrate for any consecutive prayer, or for even a text to be given me; and this was the time for realizing what "silent in love" meant
(Zeph. iii. 17).
And then it seemed doubly sweet when I was again able to "hold converse" with Him.
He seemed, too, so often to send answers from His own word with wonderful power.
One evening, (after a relapse,) I longed so much to be able to pray, but found I
WAITING " WITH" HIM.
was too weak for the least effort of thought, and I only looked up and said, " Lord Jesus, I am so tired!"
And then He brought to my mind "rest in the Lord," with its lovely marginal reading, " de sc/en¢ to the Lord," and so I just was silent to Him, and He seemed to overflow me with perfect peace, in the sense of His own perfect love.
It was worth anything to lie and think that it might be really "the Master's home call"
; but I do think it was worth almost more to find, when the tide turned, that He had really ¢aéen the will I had laid at His feet, and could and did take away all the disappointment which I had fancied must be so keen at being turned back from the golden gates.
I was more astonished at finding that He could make me quite as glad and willing to live and suffer, as to go straight away to heaven, than at anything, I think.
And it is just the same now.
I have no idea how long I may have to wait, for (though not now ill, but only invalided), what with relapses and results, Iam making very slow progress, and not likely to be able for any sort of work for months yet: but I do so feel the truth of ' blessed are they that zvazt for Him."
It seems a necessary sequence of the hrst part of the verse, "therefore will the Lord wait," tor waiting for Him is waiting with Him.
I am breaking rules in writing so much, but I could not help wanting to tell you how very kind He has been to me, and I don't think any
Christian could be more utterly unworthy than I of such gentle, gracious dealing.
I doubted and mistrusted Him for so many years, and what I used to call "terrible conflict" I now see to haye been simple unbelief.
It is so nice to meet those with whom one is in full sympathy.
One meets so many who only go N.
MEMORIALS OF F. R. #1.
such a little way ; I mean really Christians, yet taking such faint interest in Christ's cause and kingdom, all alive as to art, or music, or general on-goings, yet not seeming to feel the music of His name.
One does so long for all who are looking to Him for salvation to be '"'true-hearted, whole-hearted."
And I have been thinking how inevitably such half-hearted Christians will be at a disadvantage when ''He cometh," as compared with those whose whole gladness is from Him only, and whose whole interests are centred in His kingdom and that which advances it.
; With the return of health came a return to work.
Her quick sympathy and loving help, by word and by letter, can hardly be represented.
" Aunt Fanny always understands me" indicates the source of her influence.
Pencil notes of hers, which are really treasures, lie before me, but only glimpses may be given.
(Zi the train) September 29, 1875.
My own pear © Lirrte THIne ",— I have been thinking so much and so sadly of the hint you gave me.
We must be much in prayer about it.
For yourself, dear little thing, whatever the zear bothers or the far griefs may be, you and all your " matters" are in the dear Saviour's hand, and He says, " My grace is sufficient for thee," and I like to take a still simpler Saxon word and say, " My grace is guite enough for thee."
Yes, "quite enough," dear, for all the sorrows and all the trials, little ones as well as
REST AND TRUST.
great, and all the weakness and all the insufficiency and all the coldness and hardness of heart, guife enough for you in spite of all!
(Zo the same.) Dearest " LIttLe THInc ",— ; Le the Lord lead you, Ze¢ Him have you altogether.
And, dear pet, blessing hardly ever comes alone; if He has the joy of winning you altogether for Himself, He won't stop there, He will do more, He is doing so here.
I do trust two of the servants are resting and trusting, and I quite hope the gardener has laid hold on eternal life; and I am expecting more for the angels to rejoice over.
I feel most deeply for you.
Keep very close to Jesus, my darling, and ask Him never to let you take back what you have now given
Him. Be His entirely, without any reserve, and He will be yours entirely.
My own " LitrLe THING ",— If you knew how glad we all are!
But, better still, I know Jesus is glad.
He wanted you, or He would not have drawn you.
And now, dearie, just ves¢ in Him.
Listen to all He has to say, and you will find He has "somewhat to say to thee" every time you open His word.
Listen, and obey whatever He says (John ii. 5).
Mr. Mountain said, "our souls should be like aspen leaves, responsive to the least breath of the Spirit."
Dear little thing, be one of the Lord's aspen leaves ; don't wait for great strong blasts, but yield to the least whisper from Him of "this is the way, walk ye in it."
And, now, expect great things!
You don't know what
MEMORIALS OF F. R. f7.
He is going to astonish you with.
"Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it."
Go to work for Him at once, put your little sickle in, and see if the Lord does not make the sheaves fall before it!
Down't hold back from letting Him use you.
Your blessing will probably, if you are quite faithful with it, result in fresh blessing all around you to those who have been blessed already, and who knows what to those who do not yet know the fulness of the blessing!
Keep trusting the Lord Jesus, or rather Jet Him keep you trusting, and draw every word from Him; ask Him always, all day long, what to do, what to say.
Pray Mr. Aitken's prayer: "Lord, take my lips and speak through them; take my mind and think through it; take my heart and set it on fire!"
Your loving aunt.
P.S.—Yes, sing for Jesus! do a// in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
(To Cat)
DEAR CLEMENT,—
You are all alone, so I must send youa line.
However, you will not find it very dismal in this lovely weather and the bright look out of seeing your dear ones.
Last evening I was at a young women's meeting, and asked to sing, so I prayed the dear Master would let me bring them a message of song from Himself.
There are so many "all for Jesus" Christians here.
Seriously, dear Clement, if that is indeed our heart's motto, we find that Jesus zs all for us, and all in all to us.
I hit upon two little texts yesterday which fitted together beautifully.
First, a prayer, ""Do Thou for me, O Lord," did you ever notice it? "do Thou," just whatever wants doing for us or in us, just whatever we
DONATE HOLD BACK"
cannot do at all for ourselves.
Then, if we really pray this, we shall follow it up with "God that performeth all things forme!"
Think of Zs simply doing every thing for you and me.
What can we wish more?
Your loving aunt.
"Don't hold back from letting Him use you!"
Loyal words, often repeated.
A friend in Leamington remembers showing F. R. H. a letter she had received from Miss Weston, asking her to write "Monthly Letters for Seamen."
Frances read the letter and said to Mrs. B., "What are you going todo?
Accept it of course!"
Mrs. B.
"¥ am not fit for such a work.
I know nothing of ships and sailors,"
F, "Tf you reject it, God does not want for instruments to do His work; don't shrink from the honour He puts upon you."
Such was her faithful encouragement, (Zo a) AsHLEY Moor, September 1875.
I can hardly say I am sorry for you, dear friend, although you tell me of suffering and trial, and although
I feel very much for you in it; because I am so sure the Master is leading you by the right way, and only means it to issue in all the more blessing.
What mistakes we should make if we had the choosing, and marked out nice smooth paths for our friends!
It has struck me too, very much lately, that the Lord's most used and blessed
MEMORIALS OF F. R.
workers are always almost weighted in some way or other.
I don't know one who, to our limited view, is not working under weights and hindrances of some sort, contrasting with mere professors who seem so much more favourably placed for what they dow¢ do.
I am so very glad that He did not answer prayer for my recovery all those eight months of illness; why I should have missed all sorts of blessing and precious teaching if He had!
But when one feels that He Himself gives "the prayer of faith," then I would pray it
" nothing doubting."
After the 14th, my address will be Post Office, Whitby, Yorkshire.
I am so thankful and rejoiced at what you tell me about the two ladies ; it is so gracious of Him to use my hymns, Yours, in His grace and love.
In the autumn of 1875 Frances went to Whitby with Mr. and Mrs. Shaw; ez route she visited Miss
Sadler and her sister, the friends of early days, She also enjoyed a visit to York Minster, and a pleasant interview with Dr. Dykes.
It was at Whitby she heard, in the noon prayer meeting, the petition of a working man, " Father, we know the reality of Jesus Christ."
The same evening she wrote the poem: "Reality, Reality, Lord Jesus Christ, Thou art to me."
(Teas Wuirby, September.
» Sosingular! you know I have not been able to write verses at all for a long time, but reading a
VISIT TO WHITBY.
naughty article in —— set me going, and I wrote * Without Carefulness."
Curiously enough, it was written just in time for the International Women's Christian Association Conference at New York.
I was invited to this, and if I could not come, to write a poem to be read at it.
I was going to answer "I can't write a line," when this came to me, and it will reach the committee just in time, though I did not write it with that intention.
Then Mr. Shaw lent a copy to a friend, and reply came asking permission by telegraph to use it at another
Conference.
Had the article reached me a day later, it would have been too late for both !
Does not this look like God's hand?
It seemed like coming back into the stream again, out of the shadowy pool of silent waiting.
Somehow, I don't feel enough physical strength to be at all eager to get into the current
APpresenG ¢.
Wuirsy, October, 1875.
DEAREST G
I hope to be at home the end of next week (but don't publish it, as I can't see everybody immediately on arriving).
Mamma is better, but has been so ill that it was a question whether she could reach England.
I am so thankful for her.
For myself, I have not been ill, though often poorly, since my last relapse in June; but I decidedly do not get strong, and am not nearly so strong as before my illness, even under these most favourable circumstances of bracing air, and nobody that mast be seen, and nothing that must be done; so I am hardly likely to get any
MEMORIALS OF F. R. LI.
stronger at Leamington.
I can do a little, write an hour or two, see one or two people, sing one song, go to church once on Sunday and subside all the rest of the day; but that is the length of my tether.
JI came upon some verses which seem just to express it.
"T am not eager, bold, or strong, All that is past ; I'm ready not to do, At last, at last.
My half-day's work is almost done, *Tis all my part ; I bring my patient God A patient heart."
For I am quite satisfied to do Aal/fday's work henceforth, if He pleases; and well I may be when I have plenty of proof that He can make a ha/fhour's work worth a whole day's if He will: yes, or half-a-minute's either !
So curious your praise meeting (Young Women's Christian Association) being November roth, for it will be the anniversary of my very worst day last year.
You can't think how much I am looking forward to being at a meeting again, and to seeing you, and a few other special Y. W. C. A.'s.
But Ishall always have an idea that I was prayed back from the golden gates!
I can't think why God always so graciously lets me see such heaps of reasons for every trial He sends me.
Why, as to this year of calling apart, I wouldn't have done without it if I could, and I couldn't have done without it if I would; it seems to me a consummately wisely sent
VERSES OF AN OLD FRIEND,
and wisely timed trial (only that I hardly like to use that word for it, except perhaps as regards the physical pain).
I want to tell everybody, now, that they need "fear zo evil."
On page 5 we have already referred to our dear father's curate, Rev. F. Jeffery, and his recollection of the early birthday crown of bay-leaves.
That reference will make clear the allusions in the following letter.
December, 1875.
DEAR 'Mr. JEFFERY,—
If you only knew the gush of early recollections your beautiful little verses * brought up! my birthday wreaths, and dear papa's and mamma's birthday kisses and wishes,
* The following are the verses referred to.
To F. R. H., on Her Birthday, December 14th, 1875.
** Non sine Diis animosus infans."—Horace.
FANNY, canst thou still remember How, of old, they kept this day?
How they marked thy fourth December, Crowning thee with wreath of bay ?
*€ Child belov'd, these leaves poetic Hence shall aye to thee belong, Wear them as a wreath prophetic Of the Ministry of Song."
Say not now thy task is ended ; Sing the lovely, pure, and true _ Sing until thy verse is blended With the Song for ever new.
MEMORIALS OF F. R. f,
which I always felt meant a great deal more than I could possibly understand.
And now the Lord hath led me, not quite, but pretty nearly, the "forty years," though only the very old friends give me credit for much beyond thirty.
How kind of you to recollect the little chit!
And how Ishould like to thank you personally for the pleasant remembrance!
But I must tell you how refreshing it is, quite apart from the sentiment, to come across such trochaics.
It is rarely that I light on such, among the thousands of hymns I have gone over in my work of "Songs of Grace and Glory"; yours have such a perfect ringing rhythm as very few seem to hit upon now-a-day.
I have just begun to work a little, as a sort of " half timer" (to use the factory expression), after twelve months of 'calling apart": typhoid fever, which, with relapses and results, kept me ill for eight months, and part of the time very suffering, and then four months of very slow convalescence.
But it has been the most precious year of my life to me.
It is worth any suffering to prove for oneself the truth of "when thou passest through the waters I will be with thee," and worth being turned back (as it seemed) from the very golden gates, if one may but "tell of His faithfulness."
It is so real, Your own signature, dear Mr. Jeffery, makes the verses doubly valuable, written "in the shadow" (your darkness is the shadow of His hand).
I do feel so much for you in your blindness!
How I-should like to come and sing to you!
My dear mother is very bright in spirits but very suffering in body.
Yours affectionately.
KINDNESS OF FRIENDS,
PyrMoNT VILLA, December 13, 1875.
My DEAR E
Nothing surprised me so much as, and nothing pleased me mere than, your beautiful flowers and card.
I have had a battle with mamma as to where they are to go; she thinks them too good for her room, where I wanted to have the pleasure of putting them.
However, I think I have won!
Thank you so much for them.
I must tell you why they are such special pleasure: because I don't think you would have sent them if you had just simply hated all I said the other day.
Dear ——, I never told you, but you can't think how I have longed for you ever since I first saw you.
I have prayed for you again and again.
I want you for Jesus!
It is not only that I want you to be safe in Him, I do want that ; but I want you to be altogether His own, knowing all the sweet peace of being His very own, and using all your bright days for Him.
I want you to be "all for Jesus."
Ido so long for you to give Him your heart and life now, so that you might never have the terrible sorrow of having only a death-bed to give Him!
And I am sure He wants you; really and truly now, at this very moment, is waiting for you, and wanting you to come to Him and let Him show you His "exceeding great love."
There are so few comparatively that are on His side: won't you be one?
If you could see Him now, this minute, waiting for you, you wouldn't like to keep Him waiting Iam sure; and you wouldn't and couldn't think about anything else till you had heard what He, Jesus, your real Saviour, wanted to say to you.
Dear child, I have asked my own dear Master to give me some
MEMORIALS OF F. R. H.
token of His love on my birthday: shall it be this, that He will call you, so call you that you shall come to Him and " find rest" P Your loving friend.
Mention should be made of the kindness of many Leamington friends constantly shown to both our dear mother and Frances.
But it is impossible even to give outline of any such, or the names of most valued friends, whose ceaseless ministry threw flowers of sympathy on paths of weariness and suffering.
CHiAPDER-
«Xi; (1876.) "The Turned Lesson" — Patient work — Sympathy with E. C., going to India — Upton Bishop Vicarage — The brother's organ and last singing — The last visit to Switzerland — "' Seulement pour Toi'? — Bible reading to peasants
— The Great St. Bernard — Champéry — Baroness Helga von Cramm — Alpine cards — Illness at Pension Wengen — Return home — '' My King" — Pruning.
"Was it not kinder the task to turn, Than to let it pass, As a lost, lost leaf that she did not learn ?
Is it not often so, That we only learn in part, And the Master's testing-time may show That it was not quite "by heart" ?
Then He gives, in His wise and patient grace, That lesson again With the mark still set in the self-same place." *
HERE were many "turned lessons" in my dear sister's life to which no clue can be given in these Memorials ; but we may here refer to one testing-time.
Very patiently had she prepared for press many sheets of manuscript music *The Turned Lesson, in '' Under His Shadow," page 113.
MEMORIALS OF F. R. #.
in connection with the Appendix to "Songs of Grace and Glory."
Well do I remember the day it was completed.
We were at home, and she came down from her study with a large roll for post, and with holiday glee exclaimed, "There it is all done! and now I am free to write a book!"
Only a week passed, when the post brought her the news:
" Messrs. Henderson's premises were burned down this morning about four o'clock.
We fear the whole of the stereotypes of your musical edition are destroyed, as they were busy printing it.
It will be many days before the debris will be sufficiently cooled to ascertain how the stereotype plates stand."
Further news confirmed the loss: " Your musical edition, together with the paper sent for printing it, has been totally destroyed."
On the same sheet Frances wrote to her sisters in Worcestershire:
The signification hereof to me is that, instead of having finished my whole work, I have to begin again de novo, and I shall probably have at least six months of it.
'The greater part of the manuscript of my Appendix is simply gore, for I had kept no copy whatever, and have not even a list of the tunes!
Every chord of my own will have to be reproduced; every chord of any one else re-examined and revised.
All through my previous ''Songs of Grace and Glory" work, and my own books, I had always taken the trouble to copy off every
WORKING IN THE SHADE.
I9l correction on to a duplicate proof; but, finding I never gained any practical benefit, I did not (as I considered) waste time in this case!
Of most of the new work, which has cost me the winter's labour, I have not even a memorandum left, having sent everything to the printers. However it is so clearly " Himself hath done it," that I can only say " Zhy way not mine, O Lord." I only tell you how the case stands, not as complaining of it, only because I want you to ask that I may do what seems drudgery quite patiently, and that I may have health enough for it, and that He may overrule it for good.
It may be that He has more to teach me, before He sets me free to write the two books to which N—— alludes, and which I hoped to have begun directly.
Perhaps they will be all the better because I cannot now write them for next season.
Thus I am suddenly shut off from the bright stream of successful writing, and stopped in all my own plans for this spring, and bid work a few months longer in the shade at what is to me special exercise of quiet patience.
Ihave thanked Him for it more than I have prayed about it. It is just what He did with me last year, it is another turned lesson.
I had mourned over not bearing pain in my first illness, and so He gave me another opportunity of learning the lesson by sending me another painful illness, at Winterdyne, instead of giving me up as a hopeless pupil; and now I have been eager to get done with "' Songs of Grace and Glory" that I might hurry on to begin work of my own choosing and planning, and so He is giving me the opportunity over again of doing it more patiently, and of making it the "willing service" which I don't think it was before.
If I could not rejoice in letting Him do what He will with
MEMORIALS OF F. R. £1.
me, when He thus sends me such very marked and individual dealing, I should feel that my desire for sanctification, for His will to be done in me, had been merely nominal, or fancied and not real.
(To Miss E. J. Whately.) One must be an infidel not to see God's hand upon one, most distinctly, in such a matter as this.
But it was very good of Him to give me the opportunity of learning the unlearnt lesson, and of offering, as more willing service, what had been wawilling.
I must tell you, however, how overwhelmingly gracious He has been to me the last few days, quite startling me.
I thought it had been such a useless spring, that I had not been allowed to be any service to any one.
'Then all at once, during three days, a number of notes poured in upon me, quite astonishing me with telling that I had been made such real use and blessing, in some cases quite unconsciously, in others where I thought my efforts had produced little or no effect.
Now, is not this enough to make one's heart overflow with praise?
It has been a most sweet lesson of trust, and of more simple and absolute dependence on Him.
(Loy. 2-10) Pyrmont VILLA, ALarch 21, 1876.
DEAR FRIEND,—
Your letter, which I was providentially prevented from reading before breakfast, sent me straight away to my knees. I have been putting it all into my Saviour's hands, pouring out to Him.
I don't fed cured, but I believe
"SEARCH ME AND TRY ME.
He has taken me into His hands afresh.
No, it has not been all for Him of late; I don't mean anything definite, but breaches in the enclosure, made not by any outward foe or even ''the religious world," but by self, which I wanted to be crushed out of me, that He might take its place wholly.
I think that has been the ''something between," and it has dimmed not only the inner brightness, but the free-hearted testimony.
It is so utterly horrid not to have been a// for.Him. I do feel teady to say "sinners, of whom J am cfief," and no expressions of self bemoaning are too strong for me.
He has been so much to me, so very, very gracious ; and yet I have wandered, without knowing it except by finding that He withdrew the brightness of His shining, graciously so, because I felt the chill ; and yet, at times, off and on, it has even of late been very bright, very
| happy, only it has not been the steady and growing brightness.
Thank you very much for telling me how it is with you; that helps, because I have to do with the "same Jesus."
I want Him to prove me to the very depths, to "'search and try" and cleanse entirely.
Iam glad He did not set me free to write.
I distinctly believe it to be His holding me back from teaching before I am taught!
Iam so grateful for your letter, it is so good of Him to put it into your heart to watch over me.
Will you pray forme?
I imagined I had thought much of the " keep," as well as of the '' take," but I have not dived it somehow.
I know you must feel disappointed with me; I have not "run well" as you hoped, but don't give me up and throw me overboard alto gether, pray for me, and "watch over me" still for the dear Master's sake, for I know He has not thrown
MEMORIALS OF F. R. H.
me overboard, and oh 7 do love Him.
Thanks for the card; I thought it was "' zone of self and ai of Thee."
I have immense temptations.
I don't mean that as any excuse, only it is so; temptations to self seeking and selt complacency, etc.; and Iam made too much of, looked up to by plenty who should rather look down on me, both here and by strangers ; and I thought I was on my guard against it all; and yet I see it has insensibly undermined the "enclosure," even though I have been having exceptionally great outward privileges.
I wonder whether one thing has been wrong!
I have been, for some time, nearly every day giving half an hour to careful reading of Shakespeare; I felt as if I rather wanted a little intellectual bracing, as if something of contact with zy/fellect were necessary to prevent my getting into a weak and wishy-washy kind of thought and language. I like intellects to rub against, and have no present access to books which would do it; so I bethought myself of seeing what Shakespeare would do for me, and I think my motive was really that I might polish my own instruments for the Master's use.
But there is so much that is entirely of the earth earthy, amid all the marvellous genius and even the sparkles of the highest truth which flash here and there, so much that jars upon one's spirit, so much that is downward instead of upward ; that it has crossed me whether I am not trusting an arm of flesh in seeking intellectual benefit thus.
Yet, on the other hand, if one admits the principle, one would throw over all means as to study and mental culture, and it does really seem as a rule as if God endorsed those means, and uses cultivated powers, and only very exceptionally uses the uncultured ones.
Yours gratefully.
"I COULD NOT DO WITHOUT HIM"
(Zo FA. S) LEAMINGTON, february 16, 1876.
I hope you have had a happy week, dear F :
Only you must not let the temptation come, to fancy that He cannot, or will not, be as much to you afterwards as He perhaps was to you during the special week ; for, to begin with, '' He faileth not," "I change not."
He will be every day "this same Jesus"; and, to go on with, your whole Bible does not contain one word about His giving less grace, but always and only "more grace."
If He gave you blessing last week, it is only an earnest of MORE, if you "open your mouth," etc.
" A/ways more to follow,"
Your loving aunt, (Zo. T. W.) Tue LEasowEs, April 9, 1876.
It seems to come natural to send you whatever odds and ends come out, so I enclose this last leaflet, "I could not do without Him." I very seldom write at the suggestion of another, but a London worker said she so wanted an appeal to the outsiders based on my hymn "I could not do without Thee."
So I told her she must pray if she wanted it, and I forthwith forgot all about it.
Three months after, a most strong and sudden sense came over me of "what can they, what w//7 they, do without Jesus?" that I mus¢ write it; and it was not until afterwards I recollected that this was the very thing that had been asked.
And, on sending it, I found it was just at the right time for her special wish to distribute it before one of Mr. Aitken's mission weeks!
It will be in Home Words for June, which means going
MEMORIALS OF F. R.
straight to 300,000 homes, let alone leaflets and American copies.
Somehow, I have felt able to ask great blessings on this leaflet, though it is such a poor little simple thing, without a spark of poetry about it.
Yours ever gratefully.
I got just a glimpse of the marvellous indwelling of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost \ast week; it was so sweet and glorious ; I want to realize it a/ways.
(Zo J. G. Kirchhoffer.) April 9.
DEAREST JULIA,—
You deserve an immense long letter, and I have really only time for a few lines, as I am giving up my whole available time to work at the new edition of " Songs of Grace and Glory."
Though your letter-case looks too pretty to use, yet I immediately adopted it for unanswered letters, putting in yours to begin with.
Yours must be indeed a pretty home.
It is not just words, but both wish and prayer, that it may be a happy one to you, and that you may make many around you happy and happier.
Of course I mean this in the very fullest and deepest sense.
Ever since I knew you, I have specially wished and prayed that you might entirely live for Jesus, and shine very brightly for Him.
And you have immense responsibilities.
Why not work out your "plan of education" as a little ballad?
I think it would be a capital subject, and might be really useful.
Send it to the Editor of Z%e Children's Friend. (S. W. Partridge & Co.) As to imperfect scanning, I must try to answer seriously, for it is rather important to you.
Never leave imperfect
MUSIC-THIRST.
scanning, to save the trouble of making it perfect, never / Discipline yourself for the next few years most sternly in this, and you will be thankful, later on, for the habit and facility which it will give you.
But irregular scanning may be used with great artistic effect, where you purposely wish to suggest abrupt, broken, startling, rugged, spasmodic, etc., effects.
A good critic will easily detect the difference between the devices of an artist and the negligence or clumsiness of a tyro in this matter.
I have an idea that metre answers to key in music, and that one may introduce modulation of metre exactly as one introduces modulation of key, and with similar mental effect.
I have tried it in several recent longish poems, using different metres for different parts, and modulating from one into the other instead of passing directly.
You will see what I mean in "The Sowers," where, instead of jumping direct into the rather jubilant metre of the last part, I work up to it through '' One by one no longer," etc.
I must not scribble more.
Yours lovingly.
(Zo the same.) PyrMONT VILLA, Zonday.
DEAR JuLIA,—
How I do wish I had known! It would have been the most exquisite pleasure to have come to sing to you.
I know that longing for music so well, though T do not think many know what it is.
Sometimes I have thought that this very " music-thirst" is part .of God's gentle discipline, leaving us with that thirst instilled, just that we may turn afresh to that which stills all longings, the
MEMORIALS OF F.
R. U2. music of His name. I have had plenty of verses headed "FF, R.H.," but I am telling you the truth when I say that I never had any which touched me more, or gave me such a thrill of loving fellow-feeling towards the writer.
Thank you very much for sending them to me.
Now I have a request.
Will you give mea copy of your extremely good verses on the recovery of the Prince of Wales.
(Zo the same.) Many thanks, not only for the enclosure, but for your most amusing note, N.B,—It is only fair to tell you that you and Ellen
Lakshmi Goreh are the solitary ones, out of any number of dozen possible geniuses, whose " efforts" I have seen or had to do with, in whom I do believe.
I have come across no others who, I honestly believe, may have a "future" in the literary part of the vineyard.
This may show you I am not quite indiscriminate! and perhaps add weight to the encouragement which I want to give you, and the seriousness of the hope and aim before you.
My sister's expectations were correct; but Miss Kirchhoffer's early death left, as it were, only a prelude to what might have been a life of song.*
(See Appendix, page 354.) The following shows how faithfully she pointed out the inconsistency of some conversation.
* ** Poems and Essays."
By Julia G, M, Kirchhoffer.
Paisley :
J. and R. Parlane.
A SPECIAL BATTLE-FIELD,
Tuesday, 7 a.m.
My DEAR ——, :
As I have already had one bad night, and several troubled wakings, all about you, I had better get it off my mind.
I write to you as one who is really wanting to follow Jesus altogether, really wanting to live and speak
EXACTLY according to His commands and His beautiful example; and when this is the standard, what seems a little thing, or nothing at all, to others, is seen to be sé, because it is disobeying His dear word and not " following fuly."
" Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them."
Now, darling, be true to yourself, and to Him, as to these His own words.
Would you like any one to retail, and dwell upon, little incidents which made you appear weak, tiresome, capricious, foolish?
Yet, dear, everything which we say of another which we would not like them to say of us, (unless said with some right and pure object which Jesus Himself would approve,) is transgression of this distinct command of our dear Lord's, and therefore siz,—sin which needs nothing less than His blood to cleanse, sin in which we indulge at our peril and to the certain detriment of our spiritual life.
And Jesus hears every word, and sees, to the depth, the want of real conformity to His own loving spirit, from which they spring.
Do not think Iam condemning you without seeing my own failures, It is just because it is a spectal battle-field of my own that Iam the more pained and quick to feel it, when others, who love Jesus, yield to the temptation or do not see it to be temptation.
I know the temptation it is to allow oneself to say things which one would not say if the person were present, yes, and if Jesus were visibly
MEMORIALS OF F. R. I.
present.
And Ihave seen and felt how even a momentary indulgence in the mildest forms of "speaking evil," which is so absolutely forbidden, injures one's own soul, and totally prevents clear, unclouded communion with Jesus.
So I want you to recognise and shun and resolutely and totally " put away " this thing.
I should not write all this but that I long for your eyes to be opened to the principle, for others' sakes, for your own soul's sake, and for Christ's sake.
I want you to pray over it, to search bravely to the bottom, and to put it all into the hands of Jesus, that He may not only forgive but cleanse, and so fill you with His love that it
(and nothing else) may overflow into all your words, that He may 'make you to increase and abound in love
++ « » es tosthe-end He-may «establish your "heart unblameable in holiness."
Oh, if you knew how I pray for this for myself, you would not wonder at my anxiety about it for you and for others!
So don't be vexed with, Yours ever lovingly, CFO Cs) 1876.
This seemsa great and solemnstep.
I could never lift up my finger against what looks so like a call from God, though you would seem a long way off from us, and would be much mourned and missed from your Bewdley work.
You know how I have always desired, with you, to lay out one's life at the dest cnterest for God; and, of course, if you can do ten per cent. cf work at Rome, and only five per cent. among the Severn fogs, that is to my mind a strong argument.
I send you " I will direct their work in truth," and He zz? direct.
Have you thought of work in Syria?
LETTERS.
(Zo the same.) Although dear Miss Nott told me she thought you were thinking of Zenana work in India, I did not expect this!
Whether Rome or India, I quite think you are one of those so situated that you are "free to serve," and that the question may be wholly between youand God.
I am specially glad it is that Society ; it is decidedly my favourite, and I have been interested in it for fifteen years.
Dear Elizabeth, I feel so solemnly glad about all this ; I myself seem, more and more, a " cumberer," so I am the more glad when others are able for more service than Yours lovingly.
(Zo the same.) .
« .
It often strikes meas one of the wonderful wheels of God's providence that He lays different parts of His work on different hearts, brings one nearer to the focus of one worker's vision and another to another, and thus all the different things gettakenup.
Ihad only thought of the disappointment it would be, if you were prevented going to India!
I suppose, partly, because I do not feel separation so keenly as you would, and partly because a// my life it has been a sort of "castle in the air" fo be a missionary, only that the door for me seemed always closed by the state of my health ; and, even with my many ties, it would be nothing like the sacrifice to me that it will be to you. I shall long to hear that the Lord has made the way quite clear, and set before you an open door.
MEMORIALS OF FR. H.
June 1876.
During a visit to her brother Frank, at Upton Bishop Vicarage, she was much interested in his schools and cottages.
Every day she went about from house to house, reading the Bible and telling in simple words of God's love in sending
Jesus Christ to save sinners.
In one instance, at a garden party, my sister's happy face attracted a young stranger, so that she sought conversation with her.
Often have I been told: "F. R. H. looks so really happy, she must have something we have not."
(With the utmost skill, no artist or photograph gives a veal idea of her lighted up expression.
Is it because soul cannot be represented any more than a sunbeam ?) And my pez fails, too, in giving an idea to strangers of her sunny ways, merrily playing with children, and heartily enjoying all things.
But her deep sympathy with others' joys and sorrows, and her loyal longings that all should know the "joy unspeakable and full of glory," were the secret of her influence with others.
I may mention that her singing from Handel's " Messiah," accompanying herself on her brother's organ, after service on her last Sunday evening at Upton Bishop, will long be remembered by all who heard.
The old parish clerk remarked, "I never heard the like of that before.'
Frances then became the first contributor to a fund for erecting a
WORK AND VISITATION.
———— vestry.
(Since her death it has been determined that this vestry shall be specially "in memory of
F. R. H."
Her brother has also had her name cast in a new treble bell, thus completing the peal of six.) Her own words seem to describe passing events and visits better than others can, and therefore we again copy from them.
(Zo Margaret W.) .
« « I came to Newport with the idea of not being responsible for any one's soul at all!
I enjoyed the first three days in a general sort of way, but no real gain to myself.
I declined addressing the Y. W. C. A. meeting, but was present and was asked to sing.
I sang my arrangement of Isaiah xii.
After a few more words, and prayer from Mr. W.
, I sang for them " When thou passest."* After that I had to shake hands with many.
It was all very nice, but not real work. I felt dissatisfied, notwithstanding the affectionate greetings and thanks for singing.
Saturday I said I should like to go to work, and went with Mr. W: to the Infirmary.
In the women's ward I read and prayed and sang, and then spoke to each alone.
I saw there was sowing and reaping work wanted, and many entreated me to come again.
When I went again God sent much blessing.
One, very suffering, and who had a most distressed expression the day before, had found peace soon after I left her.
She lay Jo When thou Passest through the Waters." Music by F, R. 1, London: Hutchings and Romer.
MEMORIALS OF F. R. I.
looking so happy, saying, " I've left it all with Him now, and oh it's so beautiful!"
Another, a moping groping Christian, told me that the words God helped me to say to her lifted her straight up into the sunlight.
Before I left the ward, I do think another was enabled by God's Spirit to trust in the Lord Jesus.
From that time, it pleased God to send such continuous blessing.
But (I hardly know how it began, I think from my own couplet ".
. let me sing, Always, only, for my King," in connection with that Thursday evening) somehow I felt that on both sides, singer and listeners, it was not really "only for Him," but too much of F. R. H.
That word "only" seemed to be pressed on my own heart.
I saw it as I never saw it before, and that the "all for Jesus" must be supplemented and sealed with "only for Jesus."
It was a great and humbling revelation to me of failure in full consecration, where I really did not see it before; and of course I dare not and would not hold back from accepting and following, at any cost, what I felt God's Holy Spirit was teaching me.
I felt I could not, and would not, sing again the next Thursday as before, and that I must pass on this "only" to the Y. W. C. A.
Then I had copies printed of the Consecration Hymn, and had my name left out, and a blank line instead for the signature, which each might fill up alone and prayerfully.
~At the meeting, Mr. W—— opened it and then went away.
Then I told them I had meant to sing them beautiful songs of Handel, but I cou/d not and dare not ; that I could not, after what my King had shown me last week, sing even partly to please them, it must be "only for my King."
Then I told them about this " only," not
CONSECRATION MEETING.
merely totality of surrender but exclusiveness of allegiance, and how I wanted every one there to take ¢izs step with me that night, and to accept with me "' ONLY for Jesus," as our life motto, henceforth.
To keep my word as to singing, I just sang '' Precious Saviour, may I live only for Thee "* (to "Onesimus").
After prayer, I resumed the subject and then distributed the Consecration Hymns (very systematically done in one minute without disturbance) ; and, after running through it, asked those and those only to sign their names who meant it.
Oh, M , it was such singing, one felt it was so real!
Then I gave an interval of silent prayer which I. felt was a time of real consecration.
I was sure of His presence, so sure that He was bowing the hearts before Him by the Holy Spirit's power.
Was it not strange t':at the first '' consecration meeting" I ever came in for should have been in my own hands ?
After, I gave each at the door '' Enough."
I hardly liked giving my own leaflets, but I really couldn't think of anything else just suitable for what I wanted.
One, whom I had spoken to after church on Sunday evening, stayed to tell me how bright her hope continued; but she needn't have sfoken, the change of expression was quite enough to tell.
Well, dear M——, I felt there had been real blessing.
As days went on, Mr. and Mrs, W saw numbers of those who were there, and who testified that they had really been helped and had gained a step onward by God's grace.
Then, I could tell you much of some dear boys who * ITymn 695 in '' Songs of Grace and Glory."
MEMORIALS OF F. R. Fi.
had never unfurled their banners, or done any work for their King (I always thought I had no notion how to go to work with boys, and this has often hindered me from trying; that idea is overboard now).
With these young soldiers it was a sort of leap into "life more abundantly," a going just headlong into life and love and work for Jesus.
After a week of prayer, one has decided to give his whole life, instead of the chips and shavings of it, and become a medical missionary.
Now they are praying for others; they have pitched upon the worst boy in the school, and asked me to join in special prayer for him.
The most remarkable feature is the way they took to their Bibles, and, though holiday time, spent four or five hours a day with intensest enjoyment over them.
I never thought of asking a tenth part of all the blessing I received there since then.
I shall have to lump my requests for praise at your next Y. W. C. A. meeting.
I must pass on to you what I have been rejoicing in all this week, Exodus xxi. 5, "'I love my Master, I will not go out free"; and then connect the end of verse 6 with Revelation xxi. 3, "shall serve Him" for ever.
I can't imagine why I never exulted in that declaration before, ''I love my Master !"
A few weeks after, Frances wrote the hymn "I love, I love my Master"; and, coincidently, her sister Ellen (Mrs. Shaw) also wrote a very similar one (published by Caswell).
Then came a visit to Ashley Moor, always so refreshing to herself; and, while enjoying breezy
A HOLIDAY IN SWITZERLAND.
rides and drives and delightful friendships, she did not forget work for her King.
She has left asunbeam track in many cottages in that neighbourhood.
Year after year, my dear sister had pressed me to take a long rest in Switzerland; and so, on July 6th, 1876, we left England, vz Dieppe, for Lausanne.
That delightful journey! her sisterly care and unselfishness in revisiting well known places just to give me the pleasure!
It was with difficulty I persuaded her to go to any new scenes for herself.
From Montreux she went up to "Les Avants" to visit her "delightful friend,"
Miss E. J. Whately.
From Vernayaz we went toa quiet pension at Fins Haut, ez route to Argenticre.
Sunday came, and the sight of crowds of peasants passing by our door to early mass suggested the desire to try a Bible address for them in the afternoon.
Valerie, the daughter of our host, had been so fascinated by my sister's singing that, with the promise that Mdlle. would sing to the meeting, she threw herself heartily into the arrangement.
Three o'clock was the time fixed, but an hour before several maidens assembled, so we set them
. to copy out a French hymn Frances had just written, thereby fixing its truths on their memory ; and they then practised it as a choir.
Frances shall tell the rest.
MEMORIALS OF F. R. I.
(Zo
J. T. W.)
. e ° e ° e About thirty or forty came; some remained in a room behind our folding doors, these came from curiosity and would not come inside, and there was laughing and _talking, evidently led by the priest's servant who was there for no good!
First I sang to them, and then got the girls to join in the hymn they had copied out.
Then I read some passages from Romans, and Maria spoke to them beautifully (in French) on Romans vi. 23, and afterwards prayed.
A few went away as soon as I began to read, there was evidently some opposition.
Even those who seemed really to wish to hear were evidently hindered by the total novelty of the whole thing: an intensified form of the hindrance which I told you
I felt existed when I first sang at N You will wonder what I sang!
Well, I had been singing snatches of hymns to myself, and especially 'Only for Thee," and found this gave immense gratification in our little pension; so I thought God could as well give me
French as English, if He would, and I set to and wrote "Seulement pour Tot!" (as they had liked the tune so much.) Only it is quite a different hymn, making prominent the other side, He and He onLty is and does all for us.
Wecome to the Father "only by Thee," place our trust "only in Thee"; retaining merely a few lines of the "only for Thee," as it is useless to teach "only for Thee" till one has seen "only dy Thee." I also wrote a free imitation of " Will ye not come ?" and part of another.
I could write quite easily in French verse !
GREAT ST. BERNARD.
so it may be I shall have to do some more in this direction, a totally new opening!
Maria had had the priest himself strongly on her mind all the week ; and, not having the smallest fear of man, actually went and called on him! with the excuse of borrowing a French Bible, and asking him to see if my verses were correct.
Just imagine going to " M.le Curé" for a Bible, and for revision of Protestant hymns!~
He was very courteous, and Maria relieved her mind entirely ; told him how happy she was in Christ, and what was the secret of peace and joy.
He did not attempt controversy, and seemed interested, but only assented to all she said, so that she could not get him to open out.
\ As for taking readings myself, the prospect seems to recede.
Even taking part in this little meeting seemed to throw me back.
For years, Ihave always suffered from any work of the kind, and then been made unable for my own more special work, as I never produce a line when overdone.
And I find more distinctly, here, that I have not anything like my former strength, and even three weeks (by which time other years I have got into tip-top training) have not brought me up to where I used to start from.
All the old elasticity and physical strength are gone.
I don't feel the "atmospheric salvolatile," and go out on the freshest of Swiss mornings feeling up to nothing instead of equal to anything! Yet it is thirteen months since I was really cured from my illness.
Leaving the Chamounix valley for the Great St. Bernard Hospice, we took diligence from Orsi¢re.
The passengers sang some French songs remarkably well, We listened and commended,
MEMORIALS OF F, R. £7.
and then asked if they would join us ina new tune, "Seulement pour Tot."
Finding the driver took up the chorus in bass, Frances went outside that he might see the words, and most heartily was it sung by all.
Sunday we rested at the hospice.
The weather was fine, and the crowds of peasants who partook of that wonderful hospitality were sitting on the rocks in all directions, and of course many a seed was cast among them.
My sister's brilliant touch on the piano in the saloon attracted the good fathers, and they requested that, after dinner, she would sing for the assembled strangers.
She asked me to pray that she might give the King's message in song, and that it might reach some hearts.
As there were different nationalities present, she very simply but gracefully said she was going to sing from the Holy
Scriptures, repeating the words in German and Italian, and then sang Handel's "Comfort ye,"
"He shall feed His flock,' and afterwards " Rest in the Lord."
An Italian professor of music with many others thanked her, and were expressing their admiration to me when Frances bade them
"Good night," saying to me, "You see, Marie, I gave my message, and so it is better to come away."
Returning from the hospice we diverged to Lac de Champé, thence to Martigny and Champ¢try.
There we met her Leamington
BARONESS HELGA V. CRAMM.,
2t1 friends, Mr. and Mrs. Rogers -(of St.
Paul's); Mr. Rogers was, then, summer chaplain at Champéry.
I could testify of much happy work here, in leading others to rejoice in God her Saviour: strangers, invalids, tourists, to all she was a shining light.
And she was never satisfied with any one's profession, without a corresponding "fe for Christ and work for Christ.
I may give the testimony of one, as representing that of many others.
I feel sure that God led us to Champery that we might meet your dear sister Frances.
Oh, I cannot tell what a blessing she was to me there.
I always looked for those fair curls; and the saloon seemed desolate if I could not hear her voice and often merry laugh.
She was so happy and whole-hearted, and she spoke to me of the Lord Jesus, and the joy of being altogether and only
His.
Yes, it was on the balcony at Champéry that a new life and love seemed lighted up in my soul.
Even as she was speaking to me I felt that, with God's grace, I must take the same step she had, and henceforth live
" only for Jesus."
That was indeed turning over a perfectly new and bright page in my life.
Another Champéry friendship was with the Baroness Helga von Cramm.
We were staying in the same pension; and a few words the first time we met her resulted in many pleasant en-
MEMORIALS OF
F. R. H twinings of work.
I give my sister's reference to the fact, in a letter to Mr. W——.
One of my Champery gains was the Baroness Helga v. Cramm ; such an artiste, every picture is a poem, such a soul in all she paints; her two specialities are Alpine scenery with the weirdest effects of snow and clouds, and the marvellous beauty of the tiny Alpine flowers.
Well now, of course, she wants to paint for Jesus somehow !
So I suggested that we might do something together, and we would first ask Him to give me half-a-dozen nice little Easter verses (new ground to me!), and then that He would hold er hand, and make her do some exquisite flowers.
So the verses all came tumbling in that evening !
Such was the origin of the varied series of lovely "Alpine cards," subsequently published by Caswell.
Leaving Champery, we went to the Bernese Oberland.
Our longest sojourn was in the Pension Wengen, above Lauterbrunnen, just opposite
Miirren, with the full range of the Jungfrau and Silberhorn in view.
Getting wet through in a thunderstorm was followed by a chill, and my dear sister was seriously ill for a month.
The Lauerners were most kind, and we were happy in having the pension to ourselves and being favoured with brilliant weather.
Two or three pages from my notebook recall
"NUNC DIMITTIS."
our often pleasant talks, and the two following letters are about the same date.
September 3oth, a.m.
I found Frances with her Bible after a wakeful night: ''O Marie, I've just had such a find!
I hope you've not stumbled on it."
You remember I was speaking of that delightful verse in 2 Chronicles xxxli. 8, 'the people rested themselves upon the words of the King'; now I have found ' the word of my Lord the King shall now be for rest' (margin 2 Samuel xiv. 17): is it not lovely ? it will do for one of my night pillows; it's a down pillow, and no rucks in it!
Of course it's a woman who said it; all the women in Scripture do say excessively pretty things."
Then she went on telling me that she thought her next volume of poetry would be her " Nunc Dimittis"
(see Preface to " Under His Shadow").
On October 8 she had many weary hours of pain.
She was so patient in all her suffering, and very thankful for some remedies a lady kindly brought us from Interlaken.
One afternoon, after trying a new remedy, I begged her to shut her eyes and try to sleep.
When I returned she gave me the lines, ''I take this pain, Lord Jesus."
'You see, Marie, I know something of the sweetness of taking pain direct from His hand.
I had just been saying all this to the Lord, and then it came to me in this hymn ; it wants no correction; I always think God gives me verse when it comes so, and it is worth any suffering if what I write will comfort some one at some time!"
The next day she told me:
" While I was in such pain, the very lines I've been waiting for came to me, Three years ago I began some on the Queen of Sheba, and
MEMORIALS OF F. R. #1.
brought the unfinished sheet here.
Very often, strangers write and tell me that my lines comfort or help them, even when I know there is not a spark of poetry in them.
Now JZ cannot tell what will comfort others, so I ask God to let me write what will do so."
Another day she told me she hoped to write a paper on "' Men see not the bright light that is in the clouds."
"Dear Anne M—— suggested it to me long ago, Many bright young Christians have never been down in the depths of the waves (as I have), and they wait for some great cloud to come, instead of seeing His light in the Z7#¢/e, daily, home clouds!
Marie dear, some may think it is presumptuous, my writing 'For Thee my heart has never A trustless Nay !'
But it really is so, I could not look up in His face and say, 'Nay, my Lord, I do not trust Thee in everythins?
(Zo Miss E. J. Whately.) PENSION WENGEN, Ocfober 1876.
I am just waiting for strength to go home; I have been ill again, and am only arrived at the stage of a few minutes' walk, on my sister's arm.
I was splendidly better till the end of August, and meant to have settled down to a.delicious month or so of leisurely writing out here, and then gone home to dear mamma, and begun almost a new era of life.
However, God has chosen otherwise for me ; Iam just where I was this time last year, and any book writing is indefinitely postponed.
- »« « How glad Iam that our work is not measured
THE POWER OF ANTICIPATION,
by quantity, and that its results depend neither on quantity nor quality, but only on the sovercignty of His blessing.
It was just a bit tantalizing to see you and yet to see so little of you, there were so many things I wanted to talk to you about.
One never does have anything but sips and glimpses here!
No fear of satiety anyhow; we don't have a chance of that misfortune!
Yet the sips and glimpses are so pleasant and so varied that, perhaps, each has just that proportion which makes our lives the most really enjoyable.
Over and above the intense delight of the coming perfect and leisurely intercourse above, I think we shall almost revel in perfect power of expression.
Do we ever feel that we have, either by word or pen, expressed our whole thought, still less our whole
Jeeling?
And is there not a peculiar pleasure in finding oneself able to make even the partial expression of it a little more complete than usual?
Why is it that such pleasure seems attached to our finding power of proportionate expression (of any kind) of what is surging within?
Is it a hint of the wonderful delight it will be to have the totally new power of clothing, unerringly and invariably, the infinitely expanded thoughts and intensified feelings in absolutely perfect expression, perfect vehicle of word and song?
And, then, this delight will be met and completed by perfect understanding and reciprocation.
There must be this last, because the One Spirit will dwell so fully and so equally in both speaker and hearer.
Talking of sips, what unexpected delicious little sips one gets, sometimes, when one is really too tired for a whole draught from His word!
Yesterday I was so
MEMORIALS OF F. RK. H.
tired, just on the edge of fainting more than once from mere weakness.
I turned over the leaves for a sip, and came upon "the word of my Lord the King shall now be for rest" (margin).
I need not tell you how it rested me!
I am extremely fond of the typical scraps in the history of David, but I never saw this one before.
(To Mrs. R.) I must send you the last texts I have been dwelling on; the force, beauty, and sweetness of the combination of the King and yet the Father, the kingdom and yet the home, have struck me so much.
And it is, in almost every case, first the Father and home, then the kingdom (Matt. xili. 43 ; Luke xii. 32).
And this royal home of this kingly Father is yoursand mine!
I suppose you and JI are fully half way to it, and the view is clearer and nearer, and will be clearer and nearer yet!
As soon as strength was given we returned to England, in October.
I well remember when Frances first thought of writing "My King."
We were returning from Switzerland.
Her illness there had quite hindered any writing, and she seemed to regret having no book ready for Christmas.
It was October 21st, we had passed Oxford station, on our way to Winterdyne, and I thought she was dozing, when she exclaimed, with that herald flash in her eye, "Marie! I see it all, I can write a little book,
'My King," and rapidly swent through divisions cont Dwr?
"MY KING."
for thirty-one chapters.
The setting sun shone on her face; and, even then, it seemed to me she could not be far distant from the land of the King.
Illness came on again, accompanied by severe suffering, yet the book was quickly written and published.
We may regard the pages in "My King" as the fruit of her patiently taking back "the turned lesson," which prevented her writing for so many months.
The following letters of this period speak for themselves. a
LEAMINGTON,
I send you a prayer which I heard yesterday, and which has been arising from my heart ever since.
" Lord, take my lips and speak through them, zake my mind and think through it, take my heart and set it onfire!"
Quite possible for Him to do, though it seems so much to ask.
I am asking it; you ask it too.
Christ's words, Christ's thoughts, Christ's love, not our own any more!
How He does love you, how His very chastening proves it!
He has not let you alone, and " blessed is the man whom Thou chastenest."
So, the very sense of the reality of chastening proves the reality that you are " blessed," and "T wot that he whom Thou blessest zs blessed."
Only think that you are to "come forth as gold."
I wonder what He will do with His gold when He does bring it forth!
We shall see.
He never would thus deal with you, if He had not some very special ends to reach.
Trust on; He is worthy of all trust, isn't He?
MEMORIALS OF FR. 71.
LEAMINGTON.
I was rejoicingly thankful that you have tasted the delight of real spiritual work for Jesus.
Perhaps He is training you, by all this stopping of your own wishes and aims, for something much better, for very much and very happy work for Himself.
I have no doubt about it; it seemed such very marked individual dealing with you, that, as. He also so graciously made you willing to let
Him teach you in His own way, I had not a shadow of a doubt that He meant it to work out real and great blessings to you.
Every other aim has to be thwarted and crossed ; our soul's health needs it.
Even if seemingly right and reasonable, He will not Ler one whom He really takes in hand, to make "a vessel unto honour and meet for the Master's use," rest in any aim short of Himself and His glory.
He knows that our real happiness lies here, and He loves us so much that He sees to it that we shall not go on "feeding on ashes," if we are feeding on them instead of on Himself.
You know He must bé right, and most certainly has something better to give instead of whatever He takes away.
But I am so glad you see it, and can trust Him.
It would be too bad not to trust Him, wouldn't it? He will not, cannot change, even if your trust should be weak and flickering (2 Tim. ii. 13; Jas. i. 3, 4).
(Fo J. TOW) LVovember 1876.
This has been a slight edition of my previous illness, but it will be some weeks before I am really as strong as usual, That long illness in 1874 has so weakened me, besides seeming to have left a curious liability to fever,
LEARNING AND RESTING,
which has returned so many times.
But I am not troubled about the " fallow," and your words, "' The Lord is right, you can trust Him I know," have not done chiming yet!
Just before this last attack I was in my sister's conservatory watching the gardener cut off every bunch he could find upon a splendid vine.
He has been training it for twelve years, never let it bear even one bunch of fruit for two years, and now it is 200 feet long in the main stem alone, and 4oo feet with the principal branches.
He has pruned off a thousand bunches this spring.
"And what do you expect it to bear, by and by?"
'Four hundredweight of grapes! and, please God I live to manage it, it will be the finest vine in the county."
He was having long patience for Jourteen years with this choice vine, and I suppose my
Husbandman's waiting with me won't be as many months, so that is not a very long trial of trust.
' My faithful Saviour!"
That seemed my one thought while awake last night.
I was delighted one day on noticing the Greek of Jude 24, drraicrovs '' without stumbling," let alone without falling !
No, I am not "basking in the sunshine"; it is not bright and vivid.
I seem too tired, .somehow, for brightness; but it is not dark either.
I know He is faithful, and I am learning and resting.
I think I miss outward helps and privileges, and having no direct work for Christ ;
I know this is all right too, so I am not fidgeting about it.
I was able before this attack to go twice to church, a short afternoon service ; but the preacher's chief lesson, from Luke xxiy., was that Jesus couldn't be always with us, and that we must expect Him to speedily vanish out of our sight whenever we did get one of the rare glimpses
MEMORIALS OF F. R. H,
of His presence!
So it wasn't very enlivening, but I was glad indeed that I knew better!
Oh, I am so glad that "alway" (Matt. xxviil, 20) means always, and that "never" (Heb. xiii. 5) means wot ever and not " only sometimes," which is really about as much as I used practically to take the words for!
But the "alway" and the "never" are always ow for us, and I believe them now just as they stand.
And so, whether the day is dull or bright, and whether my eyes are heavy or clear,
I know Jesus is with me.
What a difference it does make, doesn't it?
I think "The Thoughts of God," printed in Zhe Sunday Magazine, is the very best poem I ever wrote ; but I have not heard one word about its doing anybody any real good.
It's generally something that I don't think worth copying out or getting printed (like "I did this for thee," and 'Take my life"), that God sees fit to use.
Do you remember my telling you my difficulty about saving any of my literary earnings for a rainy day?
Well, after a deal of puzzle and prayer, I gave it a// up to the Lord in Switzerland (1874), and intended to give ad// I ever earned straight away to Him.
While in London I had an unexpected cheque from Hutchings and Romer, and was arranging how to give it, when down came this fever upon me, and mere doctors and nurses made a clean sweep of this cheque and all my available resources.
Was this an indication the other way? and should I be acting rightly towards my relatives, if, when next I receive a cheque, I should give all away without making some provision for future illness?
Of course some one must pay doctors, and if I had nothing in hand it would fallon them.
So it seems robbing Peter to pay Paul!
LETTERS.
And yet He knows I would Like to give aH into His treasury, direct and at once.
You spoke in a former letter of rejoicing over good news of your converts.
I have been thinking over verse 4 of St. John's Third Epistle, and it seems to me that we toa have "zo greater joy." One is very glad when souls come to Christ, but I do think it is a " greater" joy when the work has been tested, and one finds them growing and working and shining for Jesus.
On the other hand, it does so pain and depress me when I see that those who do profess to be His, often Christians of long standing, are cool and lukewarm, and taking little or no interest in His cause.
Is it wrong that what I feel on such matters often amounts to real suffering, and brings more tears than I ever shed for any personal trouble?
Yours ever in Him.
(Zo the same.) LVovember 1876.
Isn't it odd I should be hors de combat just now?
And yet it is stranger still not to feel even the least temptation to say 'how excessively provoking!" as I should have been saying three years ago ; so everything only proves how real the peace of God is.
I have nota fear or a flutter, not a care or anxiety, for time or eternity; and I know this is not nature, for the xatural thing to me would be to fidget as to both present and prospective health, neither being very cheering!
But the Lord is right, as you wrote me; only, I have not the vivid joy of December 1873, and I am very much inclined to say "' Where is the blessedness I knew?"
But then I have deeper experience in several respects, and anyhow I have made trial of His love.
MEMORIALS OF F, R. LH.
(Zo &. A. S.) LVovember 17.
Just a loving line for your birthday, dear F——, and fondest wishes for every blessing; yes, "aé/ spiritual blessings " (see Eph. i. 3).
I feel so inclined to send you, instead of a proper "birthday text," a word which I never noticed till lately, and which has struck me very much in connection with your saying you had not thought before of "do ye even so to them" as an absolutecommand.
Itis 1 Chronicles xxvill. 8, "Keep, and seck for, all the commandments," etc. (Zook at it!) You see we are not merely to keep what we know of, and what lie, on the surface of His law, but to "seek for all."
And verily this is no hard lines, for more and more I see that "in keeping of them there is great reward" even in this life.
Don't you think this would be a good and helpful aim for the year?
I mean, God helping me, to take it as such for myself; and as it was new to me, it may be so for you too.
Don't shrink from finding hitherto unrecognised commands ; He only "commands for our good"; let us shrink rather from living in unknown disobedience to any.
'Blessed are they that do His commandments"; may that blessedness be really yours and mine.
(fo Jt) I see clearly now about the "satisfaction," z.¢, that 1 am so satisfied with the Lord Jesus that it is '" Yea, let any Ziba take all, forasmuch as my Lord the King has come to His own house in peace" ('' whose house are we," Heb. ili. 6), Ziba is entirely welcome to all my other property, so that I may but be "with the
LETTERS.
King."
If that isn't being satisfied with my King I don't exactly see what is!
So I have said and sung the last verse of my hymn " Enough" again and again.
" But now Thy perfect love is perfect filling !
Lord Jesus Christ, my Lord, my God ; Thou, Thou art enough for me !"
All the same, I see I can't be satisfied till F get to heaven, in the other sense; I shall always be wanting
"more and more" of His gifts, and His gracious words and manifestations of izmse/f.
I got perfectly clear about it in writing " Full Satisfaction" ("' My King," page
30); only, I am anything but satisfied with that same chapter, and I am afraid you are expecting a great deal too much from my poor little book.
But, it is for ''my King."
Iamso happy.
That's all!
(40 —.)
My DEAR LITTLE _ K——,
The sad, sad news has reached me, and I know a little bit of what you are bearing now, for I lost my dear mamma when I was about as old as you, and my dear papa died, almost suddenly, not so very long ago.
And Jesus knows: knows exactly all you feel, has watched every tear, and listened, oh so lovingly, to every little cry.
I think you must be in His very special care now, and He will give you, and zs giving you, even more than all the care and love that your dear papa could give you.
Now this very minute, K—— dear, He does so love you and feel for you; and I think your dear papa knows how much Jesus loves you, better
MEMORIALS OF F. R. #.
than he ever knew before; and so he can be quite, quite happy, even though you are left behind.
He is in Christ's safe keeping, and only think that, this very minute, he is seeing the King in His beauty, really seeing Jesus!
Can you not be almost glad that he is seeing Him now?
And he has really heard Jesus say to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."
Think how wonderfully happy it must have made him to hear his own dear Master's voice saying that to him!
I have two little texts for you, which must come true now, because the very time is come:
'' He shall gather the lambs with His arm " (Isa. xl. 11); and you perhaps think "Yes, I should like Jesus to keep that promise, but when will He doit?"
Look at the margin of Psalm Xxvil. ro, and you will see, " When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will gather me."
So it is zow that He will gather you in His arms.
But He has left you your dear mamma.
Will you give her my deepest sympathy!
You need not think that you must answer this, it was only I felt so sorry for you and your dear mamma that I could not help writing.
Yours very lovingly.
A few gleanings from letters to her friend Mary F—— embody some miscellaneous thoughts, and may fitly close this chapter.
Psalm ix. 4: "Thou hast given a banner to them that fear Thee."
Then He has given it to you.
Don't keep it furled.
What is its device? what is its motto?
THOUGHTS ON TEXTS.
See if you come to the same conclusion I have.
And may we not take "the Truth" personally ? (John xiv. 6.) It must be the breeze of the Spirit which waves its often drooping folds.
Pray that it may be displayed faithfully and bravely by yourself and your friend.
Jeremiah xxxi. 14:
'" My people shall be satisfied with My goodness."
Do this and similar promises refer to this life? do they not group themselves with "I shall be satisfied when I awake with Thy likeness"?
Look at John iv. 14 in Greek:
'shall never thirst"; does not that rather imply futurity?
Yet I should like to know whether any, except such as are already in the land of Beulah, can say that.
Still, present or future, there it stands and cannot pass away, being His word, His ows vord, "' My people shall be satisfied."
"Thy will be done."
In applying this to sorrow, trial, and disappointment, do we not forget the brighter pendants to this tear-dropped jewel?
' Z/zs is the will of God, even your sanctification."
" Father, I wz? that they, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am."
Also Ephesians i. 5, Galatians i, 4, and many other instances.
"When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee."
Really and truly zth you, even if the rushing of the waters seems to deafen and blind you for the moment, so that you cannot see or hear Him.
Hebrews xii. 11:
" Afterward 7¢ yieldeth," singular not plural, and therefore definite and applying to each separate trial; "it yieldeth."
So one need only wonder what afterward, not wonder whether / " Hitherto,"
' henceforth,"
The Christian's whole course in two words, Q