These habits, so seemingly eccentric to people lapped In the civilised
order of things, grown naturally out of the circumstances into which
she had been forced In pursuit of the task she had set herself. She had
deliberately given up everything for her Master, and she accepted all
the consequences that the renunciation, involved. What she did was for
Him and as she was not her own and had taken Him at His word and
believed that He would care for her if she kept in line with His will,
she went forward without fear, knowing that she might, through
inadvertence, incur suffering, but willing to bear it for His sake and
His cause. Her faith devotion led her into strange situations, and
these shaped the character of her outward life and habits. She shed
many conventions, simply because it was necessary in order to carry out
the will of Christ. She knew there were some people like the official
who saw her pushing a canoe down to the river and preferred not to know
her; but she was always sustained by the knowledge that she was acting
in her Master's spirit. She found in her New Testament that He ignored
the opinion of the world, and she was never afraid to follow where He
led. "What," says Mr. Lindsay, "she lost in outward respectability she
more than gained in mobility and usefulness. She kept herself
untrammelled in the matter of dress that she might be ready for any
emergency. In of a sudden call in the night to some distant village
where twin children had been thrown out or a bloody quarrel was
imminent, she was literally ready to leave at a moment's notice." The
one thing essential to her was her work, and anything that hampered her
freedom of action was dropped.
Not that she was thoughtlessly reckless of her health. She frequently
wrote about the need of conserving her strength, and stated that she
was taking all due care. She apologised for reading her Bible in bed on
Sunday mornings; it gave her a rest, she said, before she began her
day's work. As her Sunday began at 5.30 A.M. and ended at 7 P.M., and
during the greater part of that time she was walking, preaching, and
teaching, she might well allow herself the indulgence. It may be noted
that she sometimes misplaced Sunday. "I lost it a fortnight ago," she
wrote, "and kept it on a Saturday. Never mind, God would hear all the
prayers and answer them all the same." On another occasion she was
discovered on a Sunday on the roof of the house executing repairs,
thinking it was Monday.
Mr. Ovens relates that once when he went up on a Monday to do some work
he found her holding a service. She was glad to see him; "but what,"
said she, "is Duke Town coming to when its carpenter travels on the
Sabbath Day?"
"Sabbath Day!" he echoed. "It's Monday."
"Monday! why, I thought it was Sabbath. Well, we'll have to keep it as
Sabbath now."
"Na, na," he replied, "it's no Sabbath wi' me. I canna afford two
Sabbaths in a week."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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