Villages -- England -- Fiction; Yorkshire (England) -- Fiction
"We will not have an experience meeting to-night, my friends, because I
want to speak to you, and God has given me strength to do so. I am
weak in body, but my spirit was never stronger. It is the spirit which
is the real life, so I was never more alive. I have thought a good
deal lately on those words:
"'Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall
utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their
strength: they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and
not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.'
"'They that wait upon the Lord' shall do this. Not just the strong and
powerful, but poor, weak old women like me; aye, those weaker still who
are helpless on sick-beds; the paralysed and lame who cannot walk at
all--all these shall 'renew their strength.' They are unable even to
totter to the old pew in the house of God, so weak and shaky is their
poor human frame; aye, but they shall 'mount up with wings as eagles.'
The eagle is a strong bird; it makes its nest on the cliffs of high
mountains, it soars up and up into the clouds, and it can carry sheep
in its talons, so great is its strength. And, do you realise it? they
that wait upon the Lord are like that. Weak and worn out in body, but
"'Strong in the strength which God supplies
Through His Eternal Son.'
"My friends, I thank God that in that sense I am strong to-night; and
do you think that when I am so strong I am going to die? Never! Life
is going to be fuller, richer, more abundant."
I gazed upon Mother Hubbard in astonishment. She was not excited, but
she was exalted. No earthly light was in her eyes, no earthly strength
was in those triumphant tones. Death had laid his hand upon her but
she shook him off and spoke like a conqueror. I looked at her members,
and saw that every eye was fixed upon her, and that reverential fear
held them immovable. There was a clock over the mantelpiece, and it
ticked away slowly, solemnly, but no other sound disturbed the
stillness.
"I have heard some of you speak often of your crosses, and God knows
how heavy some of them have been, and how I have pitied and tried to
help you. You will not think I am boasting when I say that I have had
crosses to carry, too, but I have always endeavoured to make light of
them, and I am so glad of that to-night. Because, dear friends, I
realise very clearly now that to carry a cross that is laid upon us is
to help the Master. I think Simon was a strong, kindly man, who was
glad to carry the cross for Christ's sake. I like to think of him as
pushing his way through the crowd and saying: 'Let me help the Master:
I will gladly carry it for Him.' And I want to say this: that all
through my life when I have tried to carry my cross cheerfully the
Master has always taken the heavier end--always!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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