God and Suffering : Illness : Catherine Booth : Mrs. Howard Taylor : Elizabeth Fry.

If they have triumphed, then we can too. And so their voices call back to us, encouraging us not to be overwhelmed.

The book opens with extracts from the life of Catherine Booth, the Mother of the Salvation Army who battled with ill health all her life. “Try to rest in His will, dear friend,” she writes, “because there is nowhere else to rest. He knows why these wearisome months of suffering are appointed to me, and amidst all my depression, and sometimes distress, the devil shall not drive me from this one refuge—that He does all in love. I know it, I believe it, and pray that I may not frustrate His design.” Illness page 8.

Years later, another of God’s saints, Mrs. Howard Taylor, when laid aside for weeks on account of ill health, writes in a similar strain: “I do not know just how, but in the suffering and the quietness (enforced) of the past two weeks, He has taken possession afresh of my whole being, so that everything looks different and nothing is difficult any more.” Ibid page 51.

Elizabeth Fry, the fearless Quakeress who did much to improve conditions in England’s prisons, also found herself laid aside from her labors through ill health. “I am permitted to think,” she writes, “that perhaps this state of bodily infirmity is permitted for my mental rest—that I may retire a little from the world and its business.” Ibid page 57.