She loved the lowly creatures of God; but her greater love was given to those whom He has made in His own image, and for whom Christ died. Of her love for her husband and her kinsfolk and her elect friends, who answered her love in kind, little need be said. It was beautiful and worthy of her, but still within the common range of human experience and emotion. The love which marked her out and made her great was that holy charity which regards with divine compassion the ugly, the unthankful, and the evil. Squalid African babies, men and women foul with hideous vices and enthralled by bestial customs, were to her kind heart the dear objects of incessant solicitude. Enlightened by her great love, she understood the frightful strength of the forces which crushed them, yet steadfastly believed in the possibility of their deliverance. Surrounded by naked savages possessed by legions of devils, she saw as in a vision these same savages, clothed and in their right minds, sitting at the feet of Jesus, and the vision lured her on to persist, at any cost, in those ministries of love through which she hoped He might effect the transforming exorcism.
And this great love was begotten and sustained in her soul by faith in “Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” She was an evangelical Christian. In early youth, as she journeyed, she came to a place where there was a cross, and as she gazed at Him who hung there, the burden of sin rolled away, but the burden of love came upon her, and she never dropped the blessed load. “He loved me and gave Himself for me,” was the dominant note of those “everlasting chimes” which made the cheer and inspiration of her sacrificial life. And the love which was “unto death” for her, was “unto death” for the whole world. And where in the whole world were men and women whose need of the knowledge of the love of God was more clamant and tragical than that of the Congo peoples? The fingers of the pierced hand beckoned her to Africa. To Africa she went; and for Africa she lived and died.
One personal word, and my task is done. Upon his return to England, alone, Mr. Lewis told me that during one whole day, as his wife lay dying, her minister’s name was continually upon her lips; and, moreover, that she had expressed the desire that if anything were written about her it should be written by his hand. The kindly reader will understand that this affecting statement could not fail to impart a certain solemn tenderness to the temper in which I undertook my work. I would that the hand had been more cunning, and the heart and brain behind it worthier of the confidence and affection of my friend. But I have done my best. I have observed restraint. I have painted in quiet colours, as she herself would have desired. And if this simple memorial of Christian character and consecrated service carries on the thought of the reader to the Lord who inspired them, and elicits sympathy for the cause to which they were so freely given, my recompense will be great, and I will render humble thanks to God, Who made her what she was, and permitted me to write her story.
FOOTNOTES
[1] “The Life of George Grenfell, Congo Missionary and Explorer” (Religious Tract Society), p. 91 et seq.
[4] The Missionary Herald, 1892, p. 400.