“Though I have no definite facts to communicate, my impressions of her personality and character remain undimmed. I remember that as Gwen Elen Thomas she entered our school on October 12, 1868, a short, plump, fair, blue-eyed girl of sixteen, whose slight guttural accent, even without the additional hint of her Welsh name, would have suggested her nationality. Her bearing was self-contained but alert. She was there—her individuality well developed; and she was there, with all her faculties alive to receive and to give out influence. That was the first superficial impression.
“Later on we became familiar with, and learned to love, the serious, intent face, the steady penetrating glance, and the quick sense of humour, which on the slightest provocation lighted up her countenance with fun, and moved her to hearty laughter. She was keenly interested in her studies and brought to bear on them strong intelligence and powers unusually mature for her age.
“Monsieur de Lamartinière was at that time our French master, and Gwen Elen greatly delighted in his lessons. She had been thoroughly well grounded in the language, and so was prepared to profit by advanced lessons; and she made very rapid progress.
“Gifted and eager, she never seemed to find any subject dull or distasteful, but, as was natural to one of her sympathetic and deeply religious character, History, Literature, and Scripture particularly, attracted her and brought her original mind into play.
“The splendid endowments of heart and head which made her so good a pupil were given unstintedly to her missionary work, and it was with great delight that we heard from time to time of her wonderful success in Africa.”
One of her fellow scholars at the Hilldrop School was Emily Smith, daughter of Mr. Jonas Smith, a deacon of Camden Road Church, and between these two girls there grew up a warm and helpful friendship. They prepared their lessons together, and entered with girlish ardour into each other’s interests. In course of time Gwen Thomas became a frequent visitor at her friend’s home. And that it was a genial, hospitable home, there are not a few who could bear grateful witness. When her own mother died, the Smiths loved her the more for her sorrow, and for the filial devotion she had displayed; and how the friendship was maintained, and how Annie Smith a younger daughter followed her into the mission-field, will appear as this story proceeds.
And now something must be said of a man whose influence upon the life of Miss Thomas was not less than that of her minister, though he was her senior by a few months only. Thomas J. Comber was a member of the Baptist Church at Denmark Place, Camberwell, of which Dr. Charles Stanford, of gracious memory, was the gifted honoured minister. The love of Christ and the passionate desire to be a missionary of the Cross came to Comber in his early youth. While yet a lad, he became a Sunday-school teacher at Denmark Place, and was barely nineteen when he entered Regent’s Park College to gain equipment for his ordained career.
It is more than a convenient Sabbath day’s journey from Regent’s Park to Denmark Place, and so it fell out that in his student days Comber became a frequent worshipper at Camden Road. He loved children, was keen for any kind of Christian service, and soon found an opening in the Sunday morning infant class. It occurs to me to remark, in passing, that he is the only theological student of my remembrance who ever found himself effectually called to this modest sphere of labour. And I am tempted to add that if there be aught of disparagement in this reflection, it is not of the sphere.
His increasing interest in Camden Road Sunday School, and his zeal for the spiritual welfare of the scholars, led him to request permission to conduct a week-evening children’s service. Camden Road Church has always been reasonably conservative, and the proposed innovation was not acceded to without demur. But Comber, thus early, was not a man to be deterred from treading any path which seemed to him the path of duty, because certain excellent people might be in doubt of its expediency. Hesitating, dubious folk are apt to draw aside when one appears who will not be denied, and Comber had his way. The service was instituted, and spiritual forces generated by its means are working to-day.