Anthony Norris Groves

“ April 7.—We had thought the Lord had removed the sword from us, but we hear it is now near at hand; and the plague seems extending, or every one is running away. Sometimes, on looking round on our dear little circle, the old heavy faithless flesh would seek its quiet, sheltered retreat under the lofty elms, but the Lord never allows the spirit for one moment to desire otherwise than to wait and see the salvation of our God, who will for his name’s sake do wonderfully for us, that our hearts may rejoice in him. ”

“ To his love and promises, then, in Christ Jesus, I leave them; and strange and wonderful as his dealings appear, he has made my soul to acquiesce in them. To all the family of the redeemed of the Lord, especially those I know, I entreat you let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ; always abound in his most holy work, for you know your labour is not in vain in the Lord. Be as those who wait for their Lord with your lamp trimmed, for shortly he who shall come will come, and will not tarry. ”

“ Oh! how strange a thing here does a consciousness of divine life in the soul appear, and how affecting is it to receive that news fresh from the heart of one who has seen, in spiritual things, men as trees walking. May the Lord complete what he has begun, and make his recovered child a burning and a shining light in that land of darkness, where he sojourns. This intelligence comes too at a very acceptable time, for I have had a slight attack of fever for these last ten days, which, though it is not worth mentioning, has, like all fevers, left me weak, and with a tendency to depression. ”

“ Such a disease I never heard of or witnessed; certainly not more than one in twenty recovers; every one attacked seems to die.
This has been a heart-rending day. The accounts from the Residency, and the falling of a wall, undermined by the water, obliged me to go out, and I found nothing but signs of death and desolation; hardly a soul in the streets, unless such as were carrying the dead, or themselves affected with plague, and at a number of doors, and in the lanes, bundles of clothes that had been taken from the dead, and put out. ”

“ We find the prospect of the approaching coming of our Lord a corrective of the allurements of the world, and an encouragement to a simple surrender of all we have as his stewards, to him and his service, as their only legitimate and worthy object, who has redeemed us from death with his own precious blood, making us a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that we might shew forth his praises. Oh! may the Holy Spirit dwell in us more powerfully, that we may be ever fulfilling his great and glorious purpose. ”

“ Blessed assurance! But a little day of toil, and then we shall come with him, or rise to join his assembled saints, dressed all anew, with our house from heaven, that spiritual clothing meet for the new creature in Christ Jesus. Oh, what glorious liberty we are heirs to, as children of God, one day to love our Eternal Father, Son, and Spirit, with unalloyed affections, when our whole nature shall be again on the side of God, and not a place left for the enemy to put his foot to harass the heir of glory. ”

“ How strong our tower seems till the Lord blow upon its foundations, and then much that looked so fair, flies like the chaff of the summer threshing floor, and meet it is, if the immoveable parts of Christ’s own building be found to connect the poor fluttering soul with the Rock of Ages. Oh may my soul drink daily more and more deeply into that spirit of adoption and love, and assurance of the Lord’s favour, that gilded the last year of my dear, dear Mary’s life.—Lord, I feel I am a very child ”

“ May 11.—This night has been the most trying of my life. How hard for the soul to see the object of its longest and best grounded earthly affections suffering without the power of affording relief, knowing too that a heavenly Father who has sent it, can relieve it, and yet seems to turn a deaf ear to one’s cries; at the same time, I felt, in the depths of my soul’s affections, that notwithstanding all, he is a God of infinite love. ”

“ I feel so exceedingly low in the divine life—I experience so little of the power of that life which was in Christ, subduing all things to the obedience of the Father’s will—that I feel she may object more to my being accepted than I could to her. Yet, notwithstanding all this, I am conscious there is a difference—though I am only on the lowest step of Jacob’s ladder, yet I do desire to ascend higher into the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to descend lower in my own esteem, so to be able to say without the pollution of affected humility, I feel myself less than the least of all saints. ”

“ A few hours, perhaps, may show us that it is but a little trial of our faith to draw us nearer the fountain of our life. To nature it seems fearful to think of the plague entering our dwelling; in our present situation, nothing but the Lord’s especial love could sustain the soul in the contemplation of a young family, left in such a land, at such a time, and in such circumstances; but we feel we came out under the shadow of the Almighty’s wing, and we know that his pavilion will be our sanctuary, let his gracious providence prescribe what it may. ”

“ A limited atonement, just because it gives no proof that they are beloved—gives no proof that nothing else than justice could have punished them. It gives, on the other hand, no proof that forgiving love has been that which saved the elect, as it is to an arbitrary distinction it teaches them to look as the ultimate cause of their hope. I care not to be told that they acknowledge love in their salvation notwithstanding. I repeat, the redemption is to prove the divine character, not merely to leave us the possibility of believing it. ”

“ Our Lord’s days are solitary—none to tune Zion’s harps. Oh! how it makes the soul long for the courts of the Lord, where we may go up with the crowds to keep holiday; how precious now would appear some of those seasons of Christian communion which we enjoyed in dear England and Ireland. When dear Mary was with me, we had an unceasing source of happiness in conversing on our common hopes in our common Lord. Our communion also with our dear friends was thus rendered vivid, aided as it was and encouraged by the help of correspondence and conversation ”

“ O Lord, we commend ourselves to thy holy keeping, for thou neither slumberest nor sleepest. When all the difficulties of these countries follow upon one another as rapidly as they have of late done here, it seems very difficult to see how the word of life is to go forth as a testimony. Yet it will; for the Lord hath said it; therefore let not our hearts fail, or our hands hang down, for the Lord of all circumstances, who governs the most disastrous as well as the most prosperous, is our own Lord, the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. ”

“ In fact, the doctrine of rewards, as an incentive to the saints, prevails from one end to the other of the sacred volume. The notion that a love which springs from a sense of being beloved, must be selfish and mercenary, is the greatest delusion imaginable. It may be, and in proportion as its power is really known and felt, is the most holy, self-denying, pure, and devoted of all affections, an affection that seeketh not her own, but the glory of the object beloved. ”

“ Oh! how easy it is to kiss our dear and loving Father’s hand when he turns bright providences towards us. How easy, then, it is to praise! but I feel my dearest teacher is teaching me the hardest lesson to kiss the hand that wounds, to bless the hand that pours out sorrow, and to submit, with all my soul, though I see not a ray of light. Oh, thou holy and blessed Spirit, come and help thy poor wayward scholar, who indeed would not entertain a hard thought of his dear and loving Father. Through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom ”

“ We are left almost alone in our own neighbourhood, all having fled in one direction or another; we have been, however, all preserved in health, to the praise of the Keeper of Israel.
Surely every principle of dissolution is operating in the midst of the Ottoman, and Persian empires. Plagues, earthquakes, and civil wars, all mark that the days of the Lord’s coming are at hand, and this is our hope—on this our eyes and hearts rest as the time of repose, when all these trials shall cease, and the saints shall possess the kingdom. ”

“ The elements of disorder and weakness are so interwoven in this wretched government, that it will require a measure of energy and wisdom not often found united, to establish a better order of things; but I desire to leave all in the Lord’s hands. I shall here then conclude my journal for the present, and most humbly and heartily pray, that all the trials, public and private, recorded in it, may redound to the glory of him who is the Lord of lords, and King of kings; and that my soul may not lose its portion of profit. ”

“ In both these may the Lord of his infinite mercy grant success. Oh, how consoling it is, under an overwhelming sense of powerless inefficiency, to one’s work, to know that God has chosen to put the most precious gift in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of man, so that we may glory in our very weakness and ignorance, and natural insufficiency, knowing that the Lord’s strength is made perfect in this very weakness. Dear and blessed Lord, make us every one willing to be nothing, that thou mayest in all things be glorified. ”

“ How blessed a portion is ours, in the midst of all these perplexities, to stay ourselves on our God, and to confide in the sympathizing love of our Lord, who, worthless and vile as we are, will not overlook us; but for his name’s sake, will take care of the very hairs of our heads, either in life or death. Amidst it all, what chiefly troubles me is, that I love my Father and my Lord so little, and that although there is not an object in the world, but his service and glory, for which I would desire to live ”

“ Arabs I met, particularly the women, cursed me with the most savage ferocity as I passed, two or three calling out at me as though I were the cause of all their calamities; and the people who are come to live next door to us, are bitter against us, especially one man among them, who seems to have his heart quite corroded, because they are dying and we are preserved by our Lord’s love; he sits and talks under our window, saying, “These Christians and Jews alone remain, but in the whole of Bagdad you will hardly find one hundred Mohammedans.” ”

“ I have received a letter from England, which gives me a painful impression of the state of most of the religious societies. Indeed, I fear they cannot stand on their present basis. May the Lord gently lead them right. The spirit of compromise to gain the world has ruined all; yet are there some sweet spirits amongst them. I would rather have the love that could love amidst a thousand faults, than the zeal that will endure but one. ”

“ My soul is led to abhor, more and more, that love of independence which still clings to it, when I see how it would shut me out from these manifestations of my Father’s loving care. Oh! how hard it is to persuade the rebellious will and proud heart, that to depend on your Father’s love [Pg 79] for your constant support, is more for the soul’s health, than to be clothed in purple and fare sumptuously every day—or at least, as we would say, on bare independence ”

“ The internal state of the city is daily becoming more and more critical: all the necessaries of life are risen to ten times their common price, and are even then with difficulty obtained. The abominations that are now committed in the face of day, makes the city appear ripe for the judgment of the cities of the plain; and the poor Christians principally suffer in the persons of their children in these abominable acts of violence; but to seek a remedy now is utterly useless, for all the power in the city is in the hands of the lawless mob, who are the perpetrators of all the wickedness. ”

“ I bless God for all the way he has led me; and vile and wretched sinner as I feel I am, unworthily as [Pg 156] I have in all my life served him, yet I feel he has translated the affections of my inmost soul from earth to heaven, from the creature to himself. As to the dear, dear helpless children, I have committed them to his love, with the full assurance that if he transplants me from hence to himself, to join the partner of my earthly history, he will provide them much, yea, very much better than I, or ten thousand fathers could do. ”

“ Nothing can exceed the fear and want of confidence that prevails throughout the city, every man’s heart failing him for fear of those things which may be coming on us. Oh! what a resting place is the Lord’s experienced love, and the assurance that all shall work together for good to those that love him; yet living thus in the midst of constant alarm, makes my heart sometimes long for that sweet, quiet Christian communion which I left behind in England. ”

“ In every direction, without are lawless robbers, and within unprincipled extortioners; but it is in the midst of these, that the Almighty arm of our Father delights to display his preserving mercy, and while the flesh would shrink, the spirit desires to wing its way to the very foremost ranks of danger in the battles of the Lord. Oh that we may more and more press on this sluggish, timid, earthly constitution, that is always wanting its native ease among the delights of an earthly happiness. ”

“ For digging a grave they ask a sum that equals in England three pounds, in consequence of which numbers have remained unburied about the streets, so that the Pasha has been obliged to engage men, paying them at the same rate for each body they will throw into the river.
In all the villages the desolation seems as complete as it is here. When day by day I rise and see our numbers complete, and all in health, my soul is indeed made to feel what cannot the Lord do? ”

“ July 21.—In some conversation I have just had with the old father of our late schoolmaster, I have been encouraged to feel that it is almost impossible for a missionary, even of the humblest pretensions, and in the lowest degree qualified for his calling, which I can I think with unaffected truth say, I feel to be my own case—to live among these people, and not to lead them to some most important principles. ”

“ Brandram, the Secretary of the Bible Society, a kind and generous letter from that noble institution, which enables me to enter on their work with all my heart, leaving the question of money free, and only seeking the soul’s profit of those on whom their benefits are bestowed: if I obtain money, well—if not, I am only to seek a fair guarantee that the people will read and take care of the books I have without money full liberty to give. ”

“ I am much led to think on those of my dear missionary brethren, who look for the kingdom of Christ to come in by a gradual extension of the exertions now making. This view seems to me very discouraging; for surely after labouring for years, and so little having been done, we may all naturally be led to doubt if we are in our places; but to those who feel their place to be to preach Jesus, and publish the Testament in his blood, whether men will hear or whether they will forbear, they have nothing to discourage them, knowing they are a sweet savour of Christ. ”