Harvey Files: Women's Biography

It was not the stubborn, nagging illness she minded.  It was not the pain, the weakness, or even being alone so much of the time.  It was giving up the ambition of a lifetime—seeing her cherished dream come true, only to lose it again, suddenly and irretrievably.
All her life, as long as she could remember, she had dreamed of becoming a great actress.  She had worked and studied and struggled toward that goal, and at last had realized her ambition.  She had scored a dramatic triumph as Lady Macbeth, had been hailed as a great actress, and had looked forward to a successful career on the stage.
But her triumph was brief, so brief!  A sudden devastating illness had made her an invalid, had taken her from the stage and closed that door to her forever.  It was a bitter disappointment.  Being of a deeply religious nature, Sarah Flower Adams had turned to God for comfort and help in her trial, and these past three years had spent much of her time reading the Bible and the lives of the saints and martyrs.  Recently she had turned to writing, mostly poems with a scriptural or religious background, and had become a frequent contributor to magazines and church papers.
Yesterday her minister, Mr. Fox, had come to see her about some poems she had promised for a collection of Hymns and Anthems he was publishing.  She had been silly again, feeling sorry for herself, complaining about her affliction.  The minister had quietly taken the Old Testament from her bookshelves, had opened it to the story of Jacob’s vision at Bethel, and had urged her to read it.  She had read it many times before at his suggestion, and she knew the story almost as well as her own.
Her own!Suddenly she saw the unmistakable parallel between Jacob’s story and her own illness and disappointment.  She saw it so clearly now:  the darkness, the dream, the awakening, the sunshine, the triumph, and the joy.  She knew now why the minister kept insisting that she read it.  She would do more than that!  She would write a poem about it, showing how our very suffering and afflictions may be steps bringing us nearer to Heaven . . . nearer to God.
She was inspired by the theme.  She saw the closed door to her own life’s ambition as “the cross that raiseth me.”  She saw her illness, her disappointment, her loneliness, her pain, as steps to Heaven:  “So by my woes to be nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!”

Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!
E’en though it be a cross
That raiseth me;
Still all my song shall be,
Nearer, my God to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!

Though like the wanderer,
The sun gone down,
Darkness be over me,
My rest a stone;
Yet in my dreams I’d be
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!

There let the way appear
Steps unto Heaven;
All that Thou send’st me
In mercy given;
Angels to beckon me
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!

Then, with my waking thoughts,
Bright with Thy praise,
Out of my stony griefs
Bethel I’ll raise;
So by my woes to be
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!

Or if on joyful wing
Cleaving the sky,
Sun, moon, and stars forgot,
Upward I fly,
Still all my song shall be,
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!

The poem Sarah Adams wrote that afternoon, out of her own great need and her own great faith, has become one of the world’s most beloved hymns.

“Nearer, My God, To Thee” is today sung universally in homes, schools, and churches, the favorite of millions of people.  It is often sung in times of death or disaster, for it is a hymn of great comfort in the crises of life—a hymn of promise and hope for the grief-stricken and the afflicted.

In the last tragic moments of the Titanic disaster, when the ship was going down carrying hundreds of people to their deaths, the band played “Nearer, My God, To Thee” to the very last, until the surging waters closed above them.  Survivors told later how doomed passengers had knelt on the deck to pray, and how many just stood quietly, without panic, joining in the hymn.

When gold was discovered in Alaska and the hordes of greedy men rushed to the Yukon to get their share, Evangeline Booth knew the Salvation Army would be needed there.  So she headed north with half a dozen assistants, and arrived to find conditions even worse than she had expected.  Vice and lawlessness were the order of the day.  Men were shot down for a handful of gold dust, or for no reason at all.  Five men were killed the day Evangeline Booth arrived.  There were shortages of everything—blankets, food, equipment, clothing—men were quick-tempered and surly, and in no mood for sermons.  But Evangeline Booth knew what to do.  That evening she and her little band stood on the banks of the Yukon River and sang “Nearer, My God, To Thee,” and lonely men began to gather by the hundreds—by the thousands—until nearly twenty-five thousand were lustily singing the hymn!  There was singing every day after that . . . and much less disorder, many fewer shootings.

The hymn was a favorite of martyred President McKinley.  As he lay dying from an assassin’s bullet, friends near his bedside heard him whisper several lines of “Nearer, My God, To Thee.”  It was a favorite also of Theodore Roosevelt, of Harriet Beecher Stowe, of countless others.

Weaving the pattern of her own life story into a familiar scriptural background, Sarah Flower Adams produced a hymn of enduring beauty—a hymn of hope and faith—an inspiring source of comfort to millions.—Lillian Eichler Watson, from Lights From Many Lamps.

Sarah Flower Adams, born in 1805, married William Bridges Adams in 1834. After only fourteen short years of marriage and weakened by nursing her ailing sister she died 14 August, 1848 at 43 years of age.

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psa. 46:1).

Their religion was not popular: it did not, as old John Bunyan says, walk “in silver slippers.” Ah, no, it went barefoot for the most part, and was terribly wounded and bruised by the stones of stumbling over which it passed. When Agatha went with her husband and children to worship, it was not in some comfortable chapel or grand old church, but under ground, where slaves were buried, and in the dead of the night. They were in danger even there, and worshipped with the full knowledge that before the last Amen was said, rough soldiery might fall upon and kill them, or drag them off to grace some holiday fete, and be torn to pieces by wild beasts as a public show.
Well, this did not happen. They sang their hymns in peace, offered up their prayers, and listened—oh, how devoutly!—to the reader as he unrolled his book and went through some passage in Christ’s story. And Agatha rejoiced, with all that were in her house, that the lines still fell to them in pleasant places. But there were betrayers in that little company of Christians with whom they met—betrayers who did not die with shame and fear when they heard it read how Judas kissed his Master, and with that kiss betrayed Him. The betrayer made it known to the governor who those Christians were who worshipped in the tombs. None escaped notice; the rich lady, who came veiled; the Ethiopian who came with her—“no longer a servant, but a brother beloved in the Lord”; the little hump-backed shoe-maker; the centurion; the dancing girl, with her light, graceful form; the old gladiator, with his strong limbs; the rough laborer, with his iron hands; the young noble, with his satin skin; all were marked, and all their names written in a book—the governor’s criminal list: ay, but in a better and more lasting volume—in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
One night there came a messenger to Agatha’s house, and a guard, who bore a letter from the governor, commanding the arrest of all the family, and their committal to the town prison. So they were hurried away; but instead of, as they expected, being separated from one another, were all lodged in the same ward. On the morrow there came a messenger, saying that Agatha was to appear before the governor. The hour of trial had come. She had anticipated this. When she became a Christian she knew that a crown of glory would be hers; but a cross and a sepulcher lay between her and its possession. She kissed her children and embraced her husband, and felt—only as a mother and a wife can feel when separated from all they love; and was sustained only as a Christian can be—by God’s grace in the hour of adversity.
Through the gloomy passages, into the presence of the governor, Agatha advances—the guards leave her at the door. She anticipates her fate; death in some cruel form—in the flames—in the torture room—by the wild beasts on a holiday. And she prays as Hannah prayed, her lips moving, but no sound heard. She is ready to die. “For me to die is gain.” She has read these words in a letter from a faithful missionary, and she repeats them now. But she is prepared for the trial. The governor commands obedience—expostulates—threatens. But his words move her not. Now comes the test.
“Woman, by this new doctrine you have lost a wife’s affections and sacrificed a mother’s love. By it you have seduced others into your own error, and made them the sharers in your punishment. It is written in your books that a wise king found out the true mother when he ordered her child to be slain, and that, rather than that the child should perish, she would give it up to a strange woman. See, if you do not resign this new faith—this Nazarene doctrine—I will order the execution of your youngest born: if you recant, for your sake yours shall be spared.”
The Christian woman bowed her head, and was silent. Prayer from her heart went up to God’s throne, and strength from God came down to her heart. So she made answer:
“They who love their children more than Christ are not worthy of Him. If God take my children to Himself, shall I complain? Unjust judge, I trust in the Judge of all.”
At a motion from the governor, the guards advanced towards her. She fainted, and they carried her back to her husband and children. When she recovered, the guards waited with the order for the death of her youngest born. He was a brave boy, with light hair and blue eyes, and a great heart. He bade his mother and the rest shed no tears for him. He would soon be with Christ, and sing with the children cruel Herod slew when Christ was a child Himself. He hears that they will expose him on the bleak mountains, and that he is to die of hunger and thirst; but he answers, “he has meat to eat they know not of,” and that in the land he is going to, “they neither hunger nor thirst.” So they lead him away to death; and the mother covers her head, and weeps bitterly. Her first trial is over.
Next day the guards return. Another interview, with a like result, ensues. The mother is doomed to lose another child. It is a girl—a girl just blooming into womanhood. The mother and father tremble and shed tears, but they feel they must not surrender. It is a happiness in their sorrow that their children are brave-hearted. The girl throws her arms about her mother’s neck, and whispers that her brother and herself are but going to Heaven first—that they will all meet again—that in the world above the stars there are no tears and no more parting. She is to die in what they call the arena, before holiday folks, by wild beasts. So she whispers that God took care of Daniel, and that God will do better still for her: He will take her to Himself. And the second trial is past.
Agatha is childless, and she fears that some new terror may come upon her, but her trust is in God. She prays that God would make her strong enough to bear all trials, and her husband joins her. Next day her husband is the victim. “Resign,” says the unjust judge, “thine husband or thy faith.” And she answers and says, “Christ, the Savior, will help me; the Lord will enable me to bear it all.” The husband comforts his wife with hopeful, happy words, and so they part. And the third trial is over.
A week has passed, and the widowed wife and childless mother sits in the cell alone. And it is night. There comes a visitor; he bears a lamp with him, and is troubled as he enters. It is the unjust judge. The captive lifts her head. “I have no treasure now,” she says; “do with me as you will. They are all gone; why should I tarry? O Lord, send thy chariots, the chariots of Israel, the horsemen thereof!” What does the man mean? He bids her come with him, and she mechanically follows. He leads her through the passages, ascends stone steps, crosses a garden, enters a pavilion, and there—What a scene bursts on her sight! Is she in a dream? Is she in Heaven? There, here, around her, weeping on her neck, clinging round her waist, are the loved ones—husband, children—alive from the dead! How is this? The unjust judge tells the story.
Touched by the constancy of these Christians, he had resolved to test them by the sharpest trials. He wrung the mother’s heart, appealed to her tenderness for her children; and found that her religion enabled her to sustain that trial. He found that her children—her brave boy, her gentle girl—were as immovable as their mother; and he preserved them from the threatened sufferings. He aroused all the wife’s affections, tore from her the husband of her youth; and found her still faithful. The woman gave up her husband for the Lord’s sake, and the husband resigned his wife. He felt that the religion which could so strengthen them to endure all this must be no light matter. He sought to know more. He had been almost—ay, and altogether—persuaded to become a Christian; and his object now was to fly with them from danger, and seek safety on a foreign shore.
So they fled together, and were saved from peril and from persecution, and saved with an everlasting salvation. The noble fortitude of this Christian family had accomplished its work.—Teacher’s Offering.

“These people may say pleasant things to you,” she said abruptly; “but not one of them would have gone to Concord and back to see you, as I did today. I went for this gown. It’s the only decent one I have. I’m very poor”; and in the next breath she contrived to tell me that she had once taken a place as “second girl.” “My name,” she added, “is Louisa Alcott.”
Before I met her I had known many women and girls who were fighting with poverty and loneliness, wondering why God had sent them into a life where apparently there was no place for them, but never one so big and generous in soul as this one in her “claret-colored merino,” which she tells of with such triumph in her diary. Amid her grim surroundings, she had the gracious instincts of a queen. It was her delight to give, to feed living creatures, to make them happy in body and soul. She would welcome you in her home to a butterless baked potato and a glass of milk, and you would never forget the delicious feast. Or, if she had no potato or milk to offer, she would take you through the woods to the river, and tell you old legends of colony times, and be so witty and kind in the doing of it that the day would stand out in your memory ever after, differing from all other days, brimful of pleasure and comfort.—Rebecca Harding Davis.
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Thirty years ago and more my children were delighted with Little Women, Little Men, Old-Fashioned Girls, etc., and now, in the beginning of the twentieth century, their children are equally fascinated by them. Children all the world over are the best judges of children’s books, and Miss Alcott’s have as much vitality in them as ever: they bid fair to stand in the same rank as Robinson Crusoe, or The Vicar of Wakefield. Books that have stood the test of two generations will not be allowed to be forgotten by generations to come.
I think it must have been about the time of the first publication of Little Men, in 1871, that Miss Alcott came to England with her sister, Miss May Alcott, who was an artist of considerable repute. They also made a long stay on the Continent. During their stay in London they frequently called upon us in Fleet Street. I have a clear remembrance of them both, for it was a great pleasure to have a chat with them. They were very bright and cheerful, and with good reason, for just at that time Miss Alcott was at the height of prosperity, and the artist had been highly complemented by Ruskin on her reproductions of some Turner pictures.
Little Women was first published by Messrs. Roberts Brothers, in October, 1868. She said of this book, “We really lived most of it, and if it succeeds that will be the reason.” Its success was prompt, and was not confined to America and England; it was translated into French, German and Dutch. In June, 1872, the author wrote in her diary, “Twenty years ago I resolved to make the family independent if I could. At forty that is done. It has cost me my health, perhaps, but, as I still live, there is more for me to do, I suppose.” She did not regain her health, but neither did she relinquish her work. She died March 6^th, 1888, in her 56^th year.—Edward Marston.

In the beginning “God saw everything that He had made, and behold it was very good.” As it was then it is now for those rare souls near enough to their Maker to share His view-point. Mrs. Alexander beheld God’s world as “very good.” Her eye saw every precious thing—beauty was everywhere.
Artist and musician, she brought her gifts—the poetry of sight and sound—back again to the Giver, for Him to use in blessing for His little ones.
Had she so aspired it might have been otherwise. She wrote hymns for adults and poems of considerable value, but it was to interpret heavenly truths, in verse, to children that she was called.
Mrs. Alexander was interested in, and supported the two great religious movements of her day. When The Oxford Movementrushed along the highways in a chariot of song, John Keeble, its chief minstrel, found in her a kindred spirit. She revered him as a father in God. From her earliest years she had dwelt much upon, and strictly observed, the Church Calendar. Her Verses for Holy Seasons appeared in 1846. Keeble’s Christian Year had been published in 1827. When she wrote her Hymns for Little Children, a tiny book judged to be “unequalled and unapproachable,” Keeble wrote the preface.
Mrs. Alexander’s gift of song found its true fulfillment with the rising of The Sunday School Movement. The Church of Jesus Christ was at last awakening to the fact that children were capable of intelligently receiving the truths of Christianity and should be taught the vital doctrines of the Church. Mrs. Alexander was able to express these truths in words so simple that the least could understand. Her speech “did distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb.”
She brought to the Sunday School Movement an enrichment that has since become the inheritance of the youth of every branch of the Christian Church. She was not only the children’s hymnist but their theologian as well. From the scholars of her own Sunday School class, which she took week by week, she learned the inward working of the child mind. She seemed to take upon herself their nature and to become one with them.
It was no drab or colorless picture they saw as her word-painting described the glowing colors of the flowers, or the sparkling flash of tiny wings, the purple headed mountain, the dawn with roseate hues, and the rising of the red sun. How attractive was that
“Land we have not seen
Where the trees are always green.”
Lest any of her phraseology should be misunderstood by the more robust modern child, let it be remembered that “times have changed.” We do not now talk to one another in the superb period-language of Isaac Watts, but it will outlive our little day!
Her aim was to fortify the minds of her scholars against the then prevailing agnostic and atheistic propaganda, and to provide them with a sure foundation for their Christian faith. The Creed gave the text for her various hymns.
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and earth, was simplified as they sang,
“All things bright and beautiful . . .
The Lord God made them all.”
“Once in Royal David’s city.”
Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord was born of the Virgin Mary.

“He came down to earth from Heaven
Who is God and Lord of all,
And His shelter was a stable,
And His cradle was a stall.”

He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried.
Yes, on that

“Green Hill far away,
The dear Lord was crucified
Who died to save us all.”

Because there was no other good enough to pay the price of sin—and the whole Gospel of the Love of God in Jesus Christ is here—

“He died that we might be forgiven.
He died to make us good.
That we might go at last to Heaven
Saved by His precious Blood.”

As these lines are being written, young voices from East and West assembled at a Youth Conference at Swanwick, can be heard singing

“Oh dearly, dearly has He loved,
And we must love Him too,
And trust in His redeeming Blood,
And try His works to do.”

And as their youth turns to age, the story of their redemption will deepen in reality, and with passing years new generations shall arise and re-tell it, until it reaches the uttermost part of the earth.
It is told that when the little daughter of Charles Gounod was at school in England, she was expected to commit to memory certain hymns. After returning to her home in France, she recited to her father, “There is a green hill far away.” He, being impressed by the words asked her to repeat them over again. There and then Gounod sat down at the piano and composed the music which has charmed and blessed millions of listeners, and multiplied exceedingly the message of the hymn.
“He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty” was transcribed into—
“The golden gates are lifted up,
The doors are opened wide,
The King of Glory is gone in
Unto His Father’s side.”
Fear gives place to joy when a child understands that He that:
“Shall come to judge the quick and the dead” Is none other than the Jesus we loved at Bethlehem.
“And our eyes at last shall see Him
Through His own redeeming love.
Not in that poor lowly stable,
With the oxen standing by,
We shall see Him: but in Heaven
Set at God’s right hand on high.”
It was no soft or easy religion that Mrs. Alexander offered her children. She would have them know that there was “a war to wage with sin, a death to die for Jesu’s sake.” They were called to be Christ’s soldiers. Each Christian child had much to do without and within. Not only must they fight the sin that is in the world, but the conquest of self was a very real part of the warfare, and required stern dealing.

“When deep within our swelling hearts
The thoughts of pride and anger rise,
When bitter words are on our tongues
And tears of passion in our eyes;
Then we may stay the angry blow,
Then we may check the hasty word,
Give gentle answers back again
And fight a battle for our Lord.”

At this time there was no helpful outside Movement for the control of week-day leisure. Scouts and Guides, Cubs and Brownies, and the many other kindred associations, had not then been thought of. Little has been handed down of Mrs. Alexander’s contacts with her scholars other than on Sundays. Surely we may assume shared country rambles, and games in those “meadows where we play,” with the “trees in the greenwood” inviting adventure.
Exploring wild haunts with one as conversant with the ways of Nature as was their Sunday school teacher, would, for those fortunate children, equal Out with Romany for a later generation.
In her hymn:
“Jesus calls us o’er the tumult
Of our life’s wild restless sea,”
we seem to sense something of the author’s own heart history. From earliest years she had heard the call to follow Christ. Day by day there was the one ever insistent call. With passing years, still He called—in her joys and sorrows, in her cares and pleasures. His great Love allured her from the attraction of this world’s golden store—from every idol that might keep her from the one ever-increasing determination to “yield her heart to His obedience, to serve and love Him best of all.”
“Love Him best of all.” “More than these.” Here was the secret of her Lord’s trusted commission, “Feed my lambs”!
Cecil Frances Alexander died on October 12^th, 1895, at the age of seventy-two. Her grave in the cemetery at Londonderry is a place of pilgrimage for many to whom her hymns have been helpful.
At that sacred spot, holy memories will be revived and early resolves rekindled.
“To trust in His Redeeming Blood
And try His works to do.”

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“There is a Green Hill far away” is the leading Passiontide hymn and was written for children. Mrs. Cecil Frances Alexander was a “mother in Israel,” so to speak. This hymn was written for her four children. . . . She wrote this hymn at the age of twenty-three years. Four hundred hymns flowed from her pen. She was a poetess of no mean distinction, with a fine spiritual touch and gift of making the great Christian doctrines live and be understandable to little folk. She wrote a poem about “The Burial of Moses” which caught the imagination of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who said he would have been proud to be the author of such a great composition. Her husband dedicated to her a volume of his writings in these terms, “To Cecil Frances Alexander in remembrance of twenty-seven years of helpful love and example with full assurance that my own estimate of her hymns and sacred songs is that of the church and of the English-speaking Christians generally.”
Humble, religious, devout, thoughtful, Mrs. Alexander disliked praise or flattery. All the profits of her writings were given to an Irish school of mutes. She was greatly beloved of all, particularly the poor, the needy, whom she greatly benefited by her charity and generosity. The hymn is based on the words of the Creed of the Church of England. “Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried.”—W. Bramwell-Hill.

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Jesus Calls us o’er the Tumult
By Cecil Frances Alexander
Grace W. Haight
Jesus calls us o’er the tumult
Of our life’s wild, restless sea;
Day by day His sweet voice soundeth,
Saying, Christian, follow Me!
As of old St. Andrew heard it
By the Galilean lake,
Turned from home, and toil, and kindred,
Leaving all for His dear sake.
Jesus calls us from the worship
Of the vain world’s golden store,
From each idol that would keep us,
Saying, Christian, love Me more!
In our joys and in our sorrows,
Days of toil and hours of ease,
Still He calls, in cares and pleasures,
Christian, love me more than these!
Jesus calls us! By Thy mercies,
Savior, may we hear Thy call;
Give our hearts to Thine obedience,
Serve and love Thee best of all!

This popular hymn appeared in 1852 in Psalms and Hymns, published by the “Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge,” which had been in existence since 1698 for advancing the work of the Church of England in spreading the Gospel at home and in the colonies. It is based on the text: “He saith unto them, follow Me!” (Matt. 4:19).
Its gifted author, Cecil Frances Alexander, . . . was an ardent churchwoman, able to give a reason for the faith that was in her. She could express her convictions and sentiments in such vivid poetic form that the hearts of others were kindled to serve the Lord, or to suffer for Him as the case might be.
Mrs. Alexander’s eyes were ever fixed on an eternal goal. She wrote many beautiful paraphrases of the Psalms. Three of the Messianic Psalms, the 22^nd, 23^rd, and 24^th, have been aptly described as “the Cross, the Crook, and Crown Psalms.” The 24^th has been beautifully paraphrased by Mrs. Alexander in her hymn, “The Golden Gates Are Lifted Up.” The fourth stanza is as follows:
“Lift up our hearts, lift up our minds,
Let Thy dear grace be given,
That while we tarry here below
Our treasures be in Heaven!”
Some four hundred hymns and poems were written by Mrs. Alexander. Children’s hymns were her forts. “Once in Royal David’s City,” and “There Is a Green Hill Far Away Without a City Wall” have been sung and are still being sung by hosts of children. A little child once asked Mrs. Alexander, “Why was the green hill far away without a city wall?” Whereupon Mrs. Alexander changed the word “without” to “outside” in a subsequent hymn book; but most publishers, however, have adhered to the word “without.”
On October 12, 1895, with her soul well prepared for an abundant entrance, Mrs. Alexander left Londonderry . . . for the many mansions that God has prepared for them that love Him.—The Fellowship News.

All Things Bright and Beautiful
By Cecil Frances Alexander
Grace W. Haight
All things bright and beautiful
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.
Each little flower that opens,
Each little bird that sings,
He made their glowing colors,
He made their tiny wings.
The purple-headed mountain,
The river running by,
The sunset and the morning
That brightens up the sky;
The cold wind in the winter,
The pleasant summer sun,
The ripe fruits in the garden,
He made them every one.
He gave us eyes to see them,
And lips that we might tell
How great is God Almighty,
Who has made all things well.

The refrain is sung before the first stanza. This bright hymn is one of the eight hymns by Mrs. Alexander in the late Hymnal of the Protestant Church. . . .As a child she wrote poetry, and as time went by many of her songs and hymns came into popular use. Dr. David J. Beattie in his Romance of Sacred Song, says that “As a writer of children’s hymns, no name has attained so high a position as that of Mrs. Cecil Frances Alexander.”
. . . Mrs. Alexander’s long poem, “The Burial of Moses,” ranks as one of the classic poems of English literature. The first stanza is as follows:

By Nebo’s lonely mountain,
On this side of Jordan’s wave,
In a vale in the land of Moab,
There stands a lonely grave;
But no man dug that sepulcher,
And no man saw it e’er;
For the angels of God upturned the sod,
And laid the dead man there.

Notice the contrasting words, “dug” and “upturned.” But alas! in many late collections of poetry, this graphic stanza has been weakened by modern “poetry menders” who have substituted the word “knows” for “dug,” and have sought to justify the effrontery of their unfortunate emendation by placing at the head of the poem a part of the chapter, “But no man knoweth of his sepulcher unto this day.”

Naturally intelligent and thoughtful, she calmly pondered her duty, and then undertook it with a firm tenacity. Her character was, therefore, what we rightly call a strong one. She had been early taught the doctrine of the Church of Rome, and in due time became one of its most ardent members in that town. She had never heard pure evangelical truth, and she accepted as Divine the traditions of Rome, and according to these she modeled her religion with a devotion which knew no limits. To her the Church was the only and sure way to Heaven, its precepts were infallible and its practices unchallengeable. She kept a clear account with her confessor, and protected by the Blessed Virgin and her patron saint she felt she could defy all the unbelief and indifference of the world.
It was in this decided state of mind that one morning in the market place she met a friend, equally religious. Both women had been to early mass, and now they were engaged in the more secular occupation of gossip. Whatever was going to happen in the town was known and retailed in the market square amid the vociferous confusion of venders, fowls and various species of the “lower” animals.
“Have you heard the latest, Angiolina?” exclaimed her friend as she clasped her hands and raised her eyes to Heaven. “The Protestanti have arrived!”
“You do not mean it, Carmela! Why I would rather that an epidemic had visited our town than that the Protestant heresy should have infected us.”
Carmela was a most devout Roman Catholic, but much less intelligent than Angiolina, to whom she confessed her ignorance regarding the Protestant doctrine. Having expressed her surprise at her friend’s lack of information on such an all important question, she began to instruct her. But, alas! Angiolina’s instruction was more erring than Carmela’s lack of information. “You know, Carmela, that the Protestants do not believe in God, nor in the saints, nor in the Holy Mother Church. But I shall defy them, and you will help me, Carmela.”
“Yes, Angiolina, I will. They are going to preach tonight at 8 o’clock in a hall which they have hired in Via della Chiesa.”
“Well, Carmela, I shall call for you, we shall go together, and I shall get up and oppose them.”
At five minutes to eight o’clock Angiolina fulfilled her promise, and knocked at Carmela’s door. She found her friend ready and excited about the eventful mission on which they were about to start. A few minutes brisk walk brought them to the door of the hall, which they found so crowded that they could not obtain an entrance. To avoid the unpleasant crush, Angiolina proposed that they should retrace their steps, especially as the bill on the door announced that the meetings would be held every night that week. “Carmela, we shall come early tomorrow evening.”
At half-past seven the following evening Angiolina and Carmela were at the hall door, and on entering found a few people gathered and others entering. Two bright young men stood near the door and politely offered a seat to each comer. Angiolina led the way to a front seat.
“Who are these?” whispered Carmela to Antiolina and pointing to the evangelists.
“I do not know: they are strangers to our town,” replied Angiolina as she scanned the hall, now observing the simple little platform, on which stood a plain table and a chair at each end of it; now reading the text on the wall behind the platform: “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
“Angiolina, do the Protestants believe that?” inquired Carmela softly.
“No, they believe nothing,” angrily replied Angioilina.
The hall was now full, and as the town clock struck eight, the two young Italian evangelists went to the humble platform, and for a moment bowed their heads in prayer. All was silent and reverent. While Carmela gazed around on the audience, Angiolina kept her eyes fixed upon the two young heretics, determined to oppose their first utterances against her sacred religion.
Presently one of the two young preachers arose and with a calm and natural voice said: “Friends, let us commence our meeting with prayer.”
Carmela rose with the audience, but Angiolina kept her seat, with her eyes fixed upon the leader. Her first thought was to rise and challenge him, but suddenly it dawned upon her that Protestants do pray. So she would follow the prayer, and if any blasphemy were uttered she would oppose it immediately.
Having offered to God thanks for the liberty and peace they enjoyed, and for all the blessings of daily life, the young evangelist prayed for His blessing upon their meeting, that the speaker might be enabled to preach faithfully the Gospel of Christ, and that the hearers might be enabled to believe it.
The prayer was brief, fervent, reverent and spiritual, and was immediately answered so far that a portion of Angiolina’s prejudice had now evaporated.
The audience had again taken their seats, and Carmela contented herself with satisfying her curiosity, looking behind here and there to see any person she might know, while Angiolina was intent only upon one thing—the doctrine of the Protestants. So far the opening prayer had produced a favorable impression upon her, and leaning back more comfortably upon her seat, she resolved to give the preachers a fair hearing.
Presently the other evangelist rose with a book in his hand, and said: “Friends, I shall now read from the Holy Scriptures the account of Christ’s death for us, as contained in the nineteenth chapter of the Gospel according to John.”
Angiolina followed with close attention every word as it was read clearly and solemnly, and at the close of the reading she heaved a sigh, and with it another portion of her prejudice had gone.
The young preacher then announced that the subject of his message would be: “The Finished work of Christ,” and read again from the thirtieth verse the few but all-comprehensive words: “It is finished.”
He at once captured the attention of his audience by referring to the Vulgate text known to many of then: Consummatum est, and went on to expound it. For forty-five minutes he preached with spiritual unction the story of the Cross of Calvary. It was a message positive and plain, and had no controversial side issues to detract from its main line of teaching.
Laborers for Christ in Roman Catholic countries have found that the preaching of the Gospel, positively, plainly and purely, is the most potent controversy against error. Polemics too often stir up the latent prejudice of the audience against the truth. Nor is this to be wondered at. The people have been taught, as Angiolina had been, that Protestants have no positive Gospel to preach; that their doctrines are mere negations of the truth. Happily for Angiolina and for many others, there are those in Italy who “preach Christ” of “good will” and of “love” (Phil. 1-15,17).
A brief prayer brought the meeting to a close. The Gospel so faithfully preached that evening had proved the power of God unto salvation to Angiolina. So vivid was her vision of Christ crucified for her sins, that she forgot all her prejudice against Protestantism, and left the hall a happy believer. Her former zeal for the Church and its traditions gave place to an earnest devotion based upon the Word of God. Her religion had been that of her own DOING, now her faith rested on what Christ had DONE. She had been working for that which was a free gift; she had been adding to that which had been finished, and she found that her doing was practically undoing what Christ had done for her.
Angiolina lost no time in making known her conversion to Christ. The first to whom she confessed Him were His two young servants whom she had purposed opposing. Then she went to the priest, no longer to confess her sins but to testify of her salvation. She was excommunicated, persecuted and forsaken by her former friends. Carmela had not that nobility of character of which we read in the apostolic history, and which has manifested itself in the true disciples of every age, who receive the Word with all readiness of mind, searching the Scriptures daily whether those things are so (Acts 17:11).
The characters of Angiolina and Carmela are typical of many. Carmela represents the prejudice which is based upon moral ignorance, and which again lives upon indifference. It has no depth, and the impressions for good made upon it soon wither.
On the other hand Angiolina represents the prejudice based upon misconception and misunderstanding, under which there is a fundamental moral principle. Remove the debris and you will find a firm foundation on which to build, and a fertile soil in which to plant the truth.
For over forty years Angiolina showed by the life of faith how she had turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from Heaven (1 Thess. 1:9).—Heroes of the Faith in Modern Italy, by J. S. Anderson.