Clara M. S. Lowe

“ And oh! it is indeed a hallowed privilege to be a 'Hur,' to hold up the hands of the speaker, and watch the index of the soul as the message of love or of warning falls; to slip in and out of the group, and meet the trembling soul with a blessed promise, or grasp the hand with Christian sympathy. Then for us women such service affords opportunity of giving the little leaflet or book, such as the case requires, and following it up in the home with Bible in hand. ”

“ How this thirst for sympathy grows in these tiny hearts! May more dear mission-workers have anointed eyes, to seek out the orphans in the dens of our great city. May more jewelled fingers yield their offerings, ere the opportunity be past, for rescuing immortal souls that may become witnesses of Jesus Christ, and shine for ever and ever in His crown.
"Too many seek to square the cases up to their rules, but the opposite I believe is more according to God's mind. Oh, if every town in Old England would arise and build its own Orphan Home! ”

“ Surely the most inveterate opponents to emigration could not but approve of and seek a blessing on such a change. Where in all England could we have found, in a few weeks, hearts and homes for forty adoptions? These families are thrifty and homely—spinning, weaving, knitting, knowing what small means with a blessing can do, and are the very people to train up our children for a common-sense battle with the difficulties of life. ”

“ The Lord willing, I look to leave Liverpool by steam-ship 'Scandinavian,' March 7th. Miss Reavell, who has for two years been our scribe in the Refuge, accompanies me. Your prayers have gone up that blessing may be ours, as a little band of feeble workers for our Lord, and if He has been pleased to try our faith by the trial of fire, shall we not praise Him for anything His loving hand doth send us? And as one has beautifully said, 'What God takes it is always gain to lose.' Heaven is nearer now our little Robbie is there; Jesus is dearer, and has quickened us all by His constraining love. ”

“ Multiply all this thought and feeling, all this labour and prayer a thousandfold; and imagine the work of a woman as tenderly attached to home and its peaceful ways as any one of her sisters in the three kingdoms, who has made some twenty-eight voyages across the Atlantic "all for love and nothing for reward;" has, by miracles of prayerful toil and self-denying kindness, rescued from a worse than Egyptian bondage over three thousand waifs and strays, borne them in her strong arms to the other side of the world, and planted them in a good land ”

“ Excuse my adjectives, but I cannot help it, for I fairly loved the boys; and when I looked back but four years, and contrasted their hapless life (workhouse children) in one of our English provincial towns, my spirit was full of gladness, and I thanked God for these broad lands, and the untiring energy of the band of workers and friends who so intelligently and successfully save them from poverty, crime, and wretchedness, and by change of position, sympathy, common sense, and Christian love, fit them for useful, prosperous lives here, and, by grace, for eternal glory yonder. ”

“ I was once in this ward before, so ill of black cholera.' Dear children! our prayer was that it might still be a house of mercy to many a sin-wearied soul. We have never had such a large schoolroom before, nor the advantage of desks. Their joy knew no bounds when told to invite their mothers to come one afternoon in the week to help me to sew and to earn sixpence, my object being twofold,—to secure an opportunity of telling them the gospel, and to endeavour to help them in the management of their homes and little ones. ”

“ Christian ladies are ever on the look-out for the little ones in their work among the poor, and many a child has been taken straight from the dying bed of its only remaining parent to Miss Macpherson. "Rescued from a workhouse life" might be written on many a bright little brow, and "saved from drink" on many more. Poor, delicate widows, striving vainly to keep a large, young family, have often proved their true, unselfish love by giving up one or two to Miss Macpherson to be taken to Canada. Such are encouraged always to write to and keep in loving memory the dear toiling mother at home. ”

“ Lay out your scheme of emigration, get the money where you can, that is to say, call it flown from heaven and wile it out of earthly pockets, anticipate all possible emergencies and wants by land and sea, finish for the time the much epistolary correspondence to which this same fragment of humanity has given rise, tempt the deep with your restless charge, bear the discomforts of the stormiest of seas, and inwardly groan at the signs of other and worse tempests ready ever to burst forth in the Atlantic of that young sinner's future course ”

“ My DEAR FRIEND,—Thanking you for your daily remembrance of my continual wants in this the Lord's work among these poor migratory coprolite diggers, I must say it was indeed refreshing to think that this little hidden vineyard was laid on your heart to present to the Lord at the Bristol Conference. The answer has come, and now it is my blessed privilege to ask you to rejoice and praise our loving Father for another six souls born anew. Yes, dear brother, they are those I have laid before you again and again to plead for, that the dead form of godliness might be broken down. ”

“ For the sake of the poor, dear, lost little ones in our large towns; for the sake of Canada, of whose wants I am not ignorant; for the sake of humanity, and, above all, for the Lord's sake, I heartily wish you were enabled to carry every summer thousands instead of hundreds of little children across the Atlantic to be settled in those beautiful Canadian regions, where by God's blessing they may grow up 'trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified.'
"Go on, my dear friend; the Lord is manifestly with you, and He will bless you still-aye, and more than ever. ”

“ Our steerage has been the rendezvous, when weather permitted, of those who love praise and prayer. In quietness and rest we have sought to renew our strength by waiting upon the Lord; holding up your hands by prayer, dear fellow-labourers, grasping the precious fulness of the promises, for you as well as for ourselves, that every opportunity given you upon Rag-market, in the courts and sorrowful dens around our Home, in every small room prayer-meeting, or-when you gather around the Word, may have been used, and accompanied by the 'demonstration of the Spirit' and signs following. ”

“ The larger the number, the greater the resemblance of the establishment to a barrack; it becomes a depot of ready-made young citizens, got up for social life at a fixed price, and within a fixed period of time. No wonder that they often turn out unfit for practical realities, and uncured of inveterate defects.' The noble Immanuel Wichern felt this objection so forcibly, that his famous 'Rauhe Haus' institution is like a village of families, each homestead with its house-father and house-mother, and its twelve boys or girls, as the case may be. ”

“ The Training Home at Hampton bids fair to be a most valuable addition to Miss Macpherson's scheme for rescuing these dear children if only for their health's sake; the pure air, the early hours for rising, the outdoor and spade exercise, the plentiful supply of real milk, are all good; and the absence of all noise and excitement gives a much fairer chance of seeing what the boys really are, and the probability of their taking to Canadian life. ”

“ Next day the boys were gazed at, admired, wished for, questioned, and feted, until we began to fear lest they should be spoiled by seeing the great demand for them, and the eagerness with which they were sought after, being considered, as they term them, 'smart boys.' With ourselves it was a day of much prayer for the needed wisdom. ”

“ Already it has proved a time of trial and rich blessing. My heart is with you all in, your joyous privileges of making known a Saviour's love. My spirit flits to the needy children. A thousand board schools will never supply the loving, tender care we women can give to the fatherless and motherless, or sow the seed and lead the precious little souls to Jesus. ”

“ In the work of the kingdom of God on earth the true worker is in point of importance first. Apart from the wise, holy, beneficent soul, even the truth of the Gospel is but a dead letter. It is in the intelligence, loveliness, magnanimity and sweetness of a human spirit, touched finely by His own grace, that the Holy Ghost finds His chief instrumentality. Preparation for a good work is usually begun in early life, and the worker, whose story is to fill the following pages, unconsciously learnt her first lessons for this service in her father's house. ”

“ DEAR Miss MACPHERSON,—I have been here four years in August, I will be four years with my master in October. I like this country well; the crops are growing well, and there is prospect of a good harvest. Dear ma'am, I have a little brother nearly ten years old, and he is living with my mother; he wants to come to this country, and mother is willing he should, and I think I have enough to pay his passage out; and if it pleased you, would you take him into your Home, and send him out with your boys. ”

“ Again the hedges, tipped with tiny coral buds, primroses, and daffodils peeping up amid the brushwood, golden-eyed celandines and daisies lifting their sweet faces with smiles of welcome, remind us of the near approach of the bright spring-time. But the heart is saddened, and the joy of seeing this fresh burst of resurrection—loveliness is clouded, when we turn to gloomy, stifling courts and lanes in the crowded cities, where gleams of sunshine scarce ever penetrate; the lives of whose miserable inhabitants are yet more utterly devoid of brightness ”

“ In all we were struck with the kind reception we met with, evidently due in part to the presence of our companion, who, although a lady, feels called of God to labour among these dens of misery, where there is so much to do and so few to do it, and to the fact that we lent a kindly ear to their tale of distress, and did what lay in our power to relieve the immediate pressure of the very destitute. But, above all, we were thankful to meet with such a spirit of hearing, and a ready attention when Jesus was lifted up as the Saviour of sinners. ”

“ Can you picture the eager listeners to the familiar voice of one who was to them the link between the sorrowful past and the happy future?—a Bible lesson on the lost sheep. My eyes often filled with tears when I looked at their bright faces, and blessed God for the open door for them in this country. There stood Jamie D—, who, with his little brother Hughie, formed one of the saddest photographs of childish wretchedness even Glasgow streets could produce; so bright, so well-dressed, though still with a little of the old look of childish care. ”

“ I can hardly bear to think of all the sorrow you are feeling for us; but oh! let thanksgiving and praise be uppermost. It is the one thought that fills our minds. We are wonderful in health, no cold, and are as occupied as possible, looking after the children, and preparing for the new Home. Happily, Charlie the horse, the sleigh, and the buffalo robes are safe, and most useful we find them now. ”

“ Many souls had already been awakened, but the full tide of blessing had not yet come. In the villages around her hundreds of labourers were employed in digging for coprolites, a fossil which, when ground, is useful as manure. Among these men were many of the wildest wanderers, and Miss Macpherson's heart was deeply stirred for their spiritual welfare, and her time and strength were given to reach them by every means in her power. ”

“ MY DEAR FELLOW-WORKERS,—Hitherto our blessed experience has been that 'The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by Him, and the Lord shall cover him all day long;' 'The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.' Our song is one of unmingled praise, and our little band is strengthened and invigorated by the voyage,—no storm permitted to alarm us by day or night We are now entering the mighty Gulf, and passing through fields of ice ”

“ Then with patient hands bestow on his body its first baptism of clean water, a task often unspeakably shocking; reduce to fit size and shape a cast-off suit humbly begged for the occasion, and give him his first experience of decent clothing. Thereafter, proceed to the work, sometimes the most trying ever undertaken, of taming this singularly acute, desperately sly, and often ferociously savage little Englishman, training him to be what he is not, or harder task still, to be not what he is. ”