And always—every day—
There are some little loving words
Which I for Thee may say.
"He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful in much."
She continues to write with her usual forcible descriptiveness: "I found a mother and daughter in a damp room, on the ground floor of a tenement building, in a wretched condition. The room was furnished with a broken stove, one chair, two trunks, and some bedding spread on the floor, as they had no bedstead. Both were very lame, and the girl quite feeble for want of care and nourishment. After relieving their immediate wants, I tried to lead them to Christ. The girl was so sick and discouraged it was difficult to convince her that any one cared for her, but at length she cried, and said, 'How nice it is to have some one talk kindly to me.' From that time she began to read the Bible for herself, and would often speak to me of different passages of the Scriptures. But after a while the landlord ordered them to move, because they could not pay their rent, and with some effort I succeeded in sending the mother into the country, and placing the girl in a hospital.
"Two other persons, who through a blessing on my labors have become deeply interested, and even led to study the Bible, have now openly professed Christ."
Take another glance at the above touching scene and behold the lively exercise of her wonderful sagacity and powers of observation. This graphic representation of squalor and consummate misery gives pre-eminence to her adaptedness as a successful missionary of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. The eyes of the blessed Jesus, the model worker, were not closed to the wants and woes of humanity, hence his formidable power in preparing an entrance into the hearts of the people. Her Christ-like visits, carrying the rich treasure of the glad tidings, found an echo in the soul of those she visited. Although her elementary education had been sadly neglected, yet nevertheless, by her close study of God's Word and her varied experience for over fifty years in the lower part of a city like New York, she knew full well how to adapt herself to circumstances. Let us calmly follow her footsteps into this lofty tenement building and watch her movements. See how minutely she describes the sad scene. If a murder had been committed in the house and a reporter from the New York Herald, or any other paper, had called to take notes, he could not have been more minute in his description of the surroundings than she. All the collateral or subordinate information essentially necessary to convey an accurate idea of a true picture peculiarly calculated to throw a flood of light on the whole panorama are carefully furnished us by her notes. And here we are forcibly reminded of the pithy and succinct saying of Scotia's beloved bard, Burns:
"A chiel's amang ye taking notes."
Notice how she enumerates the persons and things in the apartment. The mother and daughter. The damp room. The ground floor. The wretchedness. The broken stove. The one chair. The two trunks. The bedding spread on the floor. The absence of a bedstead. The lameness. The feebleness. How consummate the skill displayed in her graphic and touching description of pitiable facts emanating from her pen with such brilliancy of rhetorical power; and all spontaneously springing not from the schools of moral and intellectual philosophy, but from the school of Christ Jesus her Lord who said to his sorrowful disciples: "These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you, but the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you." The Paraclete, who is infinitely competent to perform the instruction necessary amid all the exigencies of life, and by whose divine influence every difficulty and trial is easily adjusted, was evidently her great instructor.
"The girl," she says, "was quite feeble for want of care and nourishment." In a public address recently delivered in this city by the good and kind Dr. John Hall, of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, at the opening of a Newsboys' Lodging House, on the corner of Eighth Street and Avenue B, an institution built through the liberality of Mrs. Robert L. Stuart, at a cost of $50,000, the doctor said, "A man left to himself will choose the bad rather than the good, because the majority do, and it is easier besides. As crime breeds misery, so misery too often breeds crime. We should take note of this fact and try to mend it."