Frustrated Again and Again

Not many days go by before I am reminded once more of the Christian poetess, Frances Ridley Havergal. It may be while singing one of her inspiring hymns on a Sunday morning at Church; it may while reading a daily devotional and I am inspired by one of her poems; or it may be while searching through our bookshelf for a Christian biography to read between other tasks. But how many of us realize that this exceptional Christian author was tempted just as we are: sometimes lonely, often suffering from discouragement, fighting illness, and now and then, deeply frustrated. Frances was not hesitant in sharing these experiences with her readers as she does in the following excerpt from one of her many letters:

“I have just had such a blessing in the shape of what would have been only two months ago a really bitter blow to me.  And now it is actual accession of joy, because I find that it does not even touch me!

“I was expecting a letter from America, enclosing $70.00 now due to me, and possibly news that ‘Bruey’ was going on like steam and my other book pressingly wanted.  The letter has come, and, instead of all this, my publisher has failed in the universal crash.  He holds my written promise to publish only with him as the condition of his launching me.  So this is not simply a little loss, but an end of all my American prospects of either cash, influence, or fame, at any rate for a long time to come.

“Two months ago, this would have been a real trial to me, for I had built a good deal on my American prospects; now ‘Thy will be done’ is not a sigh but a song!”

The next year another more serious set-back came just when she was full of spiritual vitality and planning a heavy schedule of writing.  Her sister, Marie, gives the details of the fire which destroyed her manuscripts:

“Very patiently had she prepared for press many sheets of manuscript music in connection with the Appendix to Songs of Grace and Glory.  Well do I remember that day it was completed.  We were at home, and she came down from her study with a large roll of post, and with holiday glee exclaimed, ‘There it is all done!  And now I am free to write a book.’

“Only a week passed, when the mail brought her the news: ‘Messrs. Henderson’s premises were burned down this morning about four o’clock.  We fear the whole of the stereotypes of your musical edition are destroyed as they were busy printing it.  It will be many days before the debris will be sufficiently cooled to ascertain how the stereotype plates stand.’

“Further news confirmed the loss: ‘Your musical edition, together with the paper sent for printing it, has been totally destroyed.’  On the same sheet Frances wrote to her sisters in Worcestershire: ‘The signification hereof to me is that, instead of having finished my whole work, I have to begin again de novo, and I shall probably have at least six months of it.  The greater part of the manuscript of my Appendix is simply gone, for I had kept no copy whatever, and have not even a list of the tunes.  Every chord of my own will have to be reproduced; every chord of anyone else re-examined and revised.  All through my previous Songs of Grace and Glory work, and my own books, I had always taken the trouble to copy off every correction on to a duplicate proof, but finding I never gained any practical benefit, I did not as I considered it waste time in this case.

“‘Of most of the new work, which has cost me the winter’s labor, I have not even a memorandum left, having sent everything to the printers.  However, it is so clearly “Himself hath done it,” that I can only say “Thy way not mine, O Lord.”

“‘I only tell you how the case stands, not as complaining of it, only because I want you to ask that I may do what seems drudgery quite patiently, and that I may have health enough for it, and that He may overrule it for good.  It may be that He has more to teach me before He sets me free to write the two books which I hoped to have begun directly.  Thus I am cut off from the bright stream of successful writing and stopped in all my own plans for this spring. . . . If I did not rejoice in letting Him to do what He will with me, when He thus sends me such very marked and individual dealing, I should feel that my desire for sanctification, for His will to be done in me, had been merely nominal, or fancied and not real.’”—Call Back Vol. 1, pages 229, 230.

The White Yogi

From the book, George Bowen of Bombay, “The White Yogi” by the Rev. J. Sumner Stone, M. D., Dec. 23, 1889:

Two young men just landed from America on “India’s coral strand” started out to see the curiosities and celebrities of a great city on the shore of the Indian Ocean. There were monuments, temples, and palaces by the score; there were princes and princelings, governors and generals and nabobs. But this morning we were hunting a prince, but not among palaces. So we picked our way through the crowded native district till we came to a broad street called Grant Road, and stopped in front of a low, one˗storied building divided into narrow apartments, two rooms deep. This was the office of the Bombay Guardian and the home of its editor and proprietor—one of the celebrities of India.

Americans and English called him George Bowen; natives called him the “White Yogi,” or white saint. To our timid knock the door opened and—I started. It was December, 1880, yet we seemed to be in the presence of a Huguenot, Geneva Calvinist, or Scotch Covenanter of the sixteenth century. The figure that greeted us might have been John Calvin or John Knox. Spare body, thin face, gray beard, narrow, high forehead, surmounted by rimless skull cap, thus the “White Yogi” stood framed in the door, bidding the strangers to enter.

How shall I picture to you that room? It was small, its furniture was of the plainest type and limited. The editorial table was a chaos of books, copy, manuscripts, and periodicals. Among the books, placed without order in the bookcases, I noticed a loaf of bread next to a dictionary, and a few bananas sharing a shelf with some works on theology and sociology. I realized that I was in the presence of a remarkable man, in the sanctum of one of the leading writers of the Indian empire, one of the most distinguished representatives of Christianity in the eastern world. At once there flashed into my mind the words of Jesus concerning John the Baptist: “What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses. But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? yes, I say unto you, and more than a prophet.”

George Bowen was a scholarly man; he was by birth and training a gentleman. He was widely read, widely traveled, a thoroughly trained man. When he wrote golden words flowed from his pen; gems of thought fell from his lips when he spoke. He had the brain of a philosopher, the soul of a poet, and the genius of a musician. I wish I could convey to you the impression produced by the strangely˗gifted man when he sat down at the organ to let his fingers “wander idly over the noisy keys.” He lived in poverty, yet he was rich—he had all that the millionaire possesses—sufficient. He lived among the poorest of the people, was a comrade of the coolie, yet he was sought by the cultured and the noble.

Royal Insignia by Edwin & Lillian Harvey

MALCOLM Muggeridge was a searcher after truth for many years. In the course of this search, he traveled to Russia in order to explore the possibilities of Communism, only to be bitterly disappointed and disillusioned. Finally, he found in Christ the End of his search and exhorts us thus: “Let us as Christians rejoice that we see around us on every hand the decay of the institutions and instruments of power; intimations of empires falling to pieces, money in total disarray, dictators and parliamentarians alike nonplussed by the confusion and conflicts which encompass them.

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Royal Insignia, Edwin & Lillian Harvey, Harvey Christian Publishers Inc.

Are we often tempted to think, in the depth of our hearts, that perhaps, after all, God is not quite enough. So many self-sufficient people seem successful while those who trust in the Lord often appear to be just that little bit behind the times. Is God really and truly sufficient for every situation and for every need? Our Lord died an apparent failure, discredited by the leaders of established religion, rejected by society, and forsaken by His friends. The man who ordered Him to the cross was the successful statesman whose hand the ambitious hack politician kissed. It took the Resurrection to demonstrate how gloriously Christ had triumphed and how tragically the governor had failed. —A. W. Tozer. p. 30

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Thomas Kelly / Martin Luther

Royal Insignia—Blog No. 3
Royal Insignia by E. & L. Harvey, in its very title, focuses on the role of humility in the Christian’s life. It is indeed, as many past saints have witnessed, both by their lifestyle as well as by word and pen, the badge of every true follower of the lowly Jesus. Here are several quotations from this book, revealing what past saints have had to say on the subject:

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The compilations, Edwin and Lillian Harvey

Compilations can be intriguing; compilations can be boring; compilations can be most helpful; compilations can be rather confusing; compilations can be off-putting; compilations can be awesome. It all depends on who did the compiling and what material was available.
The compilations published by Harvey Christian Publishers and available in their Online Christian Bookstore were put together by Edwin and Lillian Harvey. Years ago when living in the north of England, Lillian suffered severe bronchitis every winter which confined her to bed for days if not weeks at a time.

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