70 Years A Christian ~ There hasn’t been a time as far back as I can remember when I wasn’t fascinated by the life of Jesus; His way with little children, how He calmed the sea, or spoke to women; ’whither’ in the problems of life, or in the sweet sequestered home of Martha and Mary. A tremendous, compassionate character, reaching out, teaching from everyday circumstances. He was, He Is, My Friend. To sing to Him in bed, to speak to Him in prayer, was to never walk alone. The great old heavy Bible, with the wonderful pictures; Samuel looking up to the Light and Sound of God’s Voice, and he only a child, saying, "Here am I Lord!" I would sit on the floor gazing at those illustrations. I had to sit on the floor because that Bible was too heavy for a 4 year old to hold! I was Samuel.

The childrens’ hymns too, told that wonderful story "When mothers of Salem their children brought to Jesus, the stern disciples drove them back and bade them depart.." My!  We were surrounded by those ’stern disciples’! But what matter; Jesus Loved us, it was enough: Jesus Friend of little children, be a Friend to me, take my hand and ever keep me close to Thee..

As I grew up those stern disciples grew sterner. But what matter; I already knew My Friend! I would take mum’s hand and walk to the Meetings, even if no one else wanted to go. Sunday morning was for everyone. But evenings were a choice. And I chose to be there. Sometimes, for a child, it would be quite frightening, when they spoke from Revelations, or Daniel... But always there were songs of My Friend: Stand up! Stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the Cross! Yes, I would be a soldier for Him. Or, In the battlefields of Life, Be a Hero; Yes! I would be a hero for Him!

And many battles there were, for our People were too strict. Our People were...., no matter how you tried to please them, something was always wrong!! And you were led to think that you were not just serving them but that somehow God himself was still displeased, just to add weight to their own displeasure. And here was my poor grandmother, sick, took a stroke as many people do. But why was it called ’punishment’??!! Because she was asked to leave her place in the country that she was used to, for a flat in town and she could not bring herself to do it. That was why this awful ’punishment’ was laid at her door!! That’s what they said!!! What kind of Goodwill was this? Yet, that Voice was there for me with Words of Comfort that no other Voice could speak:

"Art thou afraid His power shall fail when comes the evil day
And can an all-creating arm grow weary or decay?
Supreme in Wisdom as in Power the God of Jacob stands
Though Him thou cannot see or trace the working of His hands..."

So our little girl died of heatstroke and there it was again; someone said "it’s punishment". My poor husband went to pieces. What kind of God is this?! And yet, still, I knew, that Still Small Voice was there. And still, it was hard to see this ’punishment’ laid at someone’s door in yet another generation. Why were people being condemned this way. Why were good and kind friends being written off? That became the big question!!

Then I began to see and Know; somewhere in that Old Book, that tells the Old Story, the words are written: "The Letter killeth but the Spirit gives Life", and again "These are they which tesitify of Me, the coming of a new and better King.." Jesus! That was Jesus.
Jesus, who said these things:
Are ye not better than many sparrows.. surely there are better ways to do things.. whatsoever  ye would that men should do to you, do ye so unto them..  suffer the little children to come unto Me and forbid them not....your dear loving heavenly Father Knows what ye have need of before ye ask Him....

In view of all these words and more, I find His Teachings so full of Love for All. What a cruel weapon the Old Book becomes when not understood, when used instead to slay people with! All the old influences are there to trace down through the years, those ’stern disciples’ with their sterner ways. And perhaps we would have understood sooner if we had been allowed to read, but the only book that was ’Aloo’d’  under ’grandfather’ was the Bible.

Yet, despite all the fearful whisperings, a seed had been sown, from my very earliest youth, really from infancy, I Knew My Friend, I Knew that Spirit and so, when the day came that He Called me, my heart melted away like snow and I wept and I knew that He had heard, that He had seen, that He Knew everything.

He’s the Lily of the Valley,

  There came the day when we closed the door on one hundred years at Lochside Cottage. Closed the door on what was supposed to be Joy and Peace and Love but, in these ways, continued to be a battlefield into the 2nd and 3rd and 4th generation. Forbid them not! the Master said. Sometimes His followers are very forbidding, and Goodwill and joy "fly oot the windae" as they say in Scotland.  And, as my own little boy said to me so many years ago, me misunderstanding when he was trying so hard to be good: "Mum! You’re not looking at me right!!"  Now we can say, our eyes are open. I have been set free and, to hark back to those Words I heard so long ago "When the crooked things are straightened and the dark things are made plain" - I no longer "see though a glass darkly" but Face to Face.

Well, my children will tell you I have told my stories round and round, to anyone who might listen. I speak and continue to speak because, through all of our deepest sorrow and distress "they suffered not a woman to speak".  Strangely, in my early youth, women did hold the floor, did take up a sermon if they were moved by Spirit. It was received as being of the Spirit, no matter if it were man or woman. But over time, this understanding faded, like a light going out in the temple. And, just as in the story of Samuel; "Something’s Wrong!!" This is not Christ, this is human beings, making their own way:  "fear’t to live and fear’t to die" as they say in the old country, which is not the way of Christ. Jesus will forever say "It is I! Be Not Afraid."

I may say some little thing more before I’m done but Love One Another, Goodwill To All; that’s it in a nutshell! That’s the story all told! Except to say, I have carried the story of young Samuel in the temple, the child ’quick to hear’ the voice of the Spirit even as the old priest could not, carried it from early childhood in the London Mission Hall:

Hushed was the evening hymn,
The Temple courts were dark;
The lamp was burning dim
Before the sacred ark;
When suddenly a Voice divine
Rang through the silence of the shrine

The old man, meek and mild,
The priest of Israel slept;
His watch the temple-child,
The little Levite kept;
And what from Eli’s sense was sealed,
The Lord to Hannah’s son revealed.

Oh! give me Samuel’s ear,
The open ear, O Lord,
Alive and quick to hear
Each whisper of Thy word,
Like him to answer at Thy call,
And to obey Thee first of all. 

Oh! give me Samuel’s heart,
A lowly heart that waits
Where in Thy House Thou art,
Or watches at Thy gates
By day and night, a heart that still
Moves at the breathing of Thy will. 

Oh! give me Samuel’s mind,
A sweet unmurmuring faith,
Obedient and resigned
To Thee in life and death,
That I may read with childlike eyes
Truths that are hidden from the wise. 
(J D Burns, 1874)

*~*~*~*

When I got my Calling, to go to Ireland and help out with the Mission there, I did go, but that wasn’t all there was to it. I sat in the Meeting and I asked inside myself of God; "If Your Spirit is in this man, cause him to speak to me." I nearly jumped out of my skin when, minutes later, ’Grandfather’ turned to me, as he had never done before and said "Well, Cathy, what have you to say?" And I took that as my confirmation. Years later, when Robert Morrow took that seat, I got a clear inner confirmation that this man, in his turn, would be my Teacher. Unexpectedly, Robert Morrow turned out to be the last in the line, for me. After he passed, and his replacement rose, I did not have the clarity I had felt on those two previous occasions, and I did wonder what to do: was I to give to this man what I had, of one heart, given to his predecessors? And back came the robust reply: "See thou do it not!! For I also am formed out of the clay."  Well!!

This was of course to set me free. It was time for me to stand on my own two feet!! Not that it all happens in a day. No way!! As my American son-in-law says with a twinkle; "You can take the girl out of the Meeting, but can you take the Meeting out of the girl?!!" How and ever, I do understand and I do thank God, that it was all to set me free!!

 "I shall light a candle of understanding in your heart, which shall not be put out." Apocrypha