Memoirs of Mrs. Rebecca Steward, Containing: A Full Sketch of Her Life: With Various Selections from Her Writings and Letters ...Steward, T. G. (Theophilus Gould)
Religion
Memoirs of Mrs. Rebecca Steward, Containing: A Full Sketch of Her Life: With Various Selections from Her Writings and Letters ...
Steward, T. G. (Theophilus Gould)
Steward, Rebecca Gould, Mrs., 1820-1877
When I was left at ten years of age an orphan, she gave me many items
of advice and encouragement, which were as precious ointment to my
soul; when I lay on what I supposed was a death bed, she knew how to
talk with me and how to pray for me, so as to impress me with her
sympathy for me and true faith in God. I can never forget those days
of my fearful looking for the messenger, death, when I was without
hope and God in the world. My dear aunt would say to me, when the
physician thought I would hardly recover: "Frank, I think you will get
well. I believe God has a great work for you. I can see it. He will
raise you up if you will only trust Him." Then she would bring duty
right to my heart, urge me to trust, faith, and repentance towards
God. How well I remember her asking, with the tears streaming down her
cheeks: "Now, Frank, can't you see Jesus in this?" the blessed _word_
which she had been reading. "Can't you look right to him and live?"
Then, after it pleased God to allow me to get well, she never forgot
me, but always urged me to give myself up to Christ, pointing out to
me the narrow escape which I had made, praying and agonizing with me;
so that to-day, whatever I am for humanity and God, I owe largely to
that sainted woman, as God's instrument.
At the head of the domestic circle, with my uncle, she appeared to
have a clear and high notion of home economy. Her house was a house of
order, pleasure, books, the Bible, religion, and prayer. Every member
of her family was taught that noble and divine idea of liberty in
love. The erring were made to feel the weight of guilt keenly, and the
force of love deeply. The well disposed were not flattered to ruin,
but urged to grace. She reared her children for heaven and God. If any
of them should fail to enjoy the end of her life in their behalf, she
will still have her reward.
In a letter to me, immediately subsequent to the marriage of her
youngest child, she said: "I have raised a family of six children. I
had long set up in my house an altar to God to which we all came, but
now, thank God, we have seven altars set up to Him." How great must
have been the satisfaction of seeing every one of her children not
only settled in life, but given to God. "Train up a child in the way
he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it," is well
verified in this case.
There was an air of grace and light in her house, which no one could
fail to observe, after a very short residence in her family.
Discussion of general topics was free and intelligent. Happy
expressions showed that their source was happy hearts.
The books on her shelves, though not so numerous as in many houses,
yet were of the best and from the finest authors. I infer, though I
never heard her say so, that Burns was one of her favorites among the
poets.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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