I-877-] 



HIS SISTER MARY. 



355 



(Friday, May 25) : "O Heavenly Father, may I receive from 

 Thee with humble spirit this great grief of the departure of 

 my beloved Philip, whom Thou hast called to Thyself to join 

 the blessed ones who are gone before, my father, my mother, ■ 

 my Anna. His was the blessing of the pure in heart : and 

 he was indeed devoted to Thee and his fellow-creatures. But 

 the parting is very grievous, for I nursed him as a mother in his 

 childhood, and always loved him, dear brother." She wrote 

 to me next day: "Our dear Philip! I had an envelope 

 directed to send him off to-day — something for a journey. 

 But he was quite wearied and exhausted, and the Father has 

 given him rest in His own good time. We should not mourn 

 for him, but it quite overwhelms me. . . . He has indeed 

 fought a good fight, and it is now 6 Well done, good and 

 faithful servant ! ' What a welcome he will have there ! I 

 am sure that poor Minna will have every sympathy and help. 

 Dear Philip was so widely respected and loved; and so is she, 

 as I saw when I was there." 



On the following Sunday, Mary and others of the family 

 attended at Lewin's Mead Meeting, where they had listened to 

 him three years before : and the Rev. A. N. Blatchford, B.A., 

 preached from Christ's words : " Other men laboured, and ye 

 are entered into their labours." "It is none the less satis- 

 factory," he said, " to bear witness of the great nobility of the 

 spirit which has left the circle of its earthly friendship, from the 

 fact that he who has passed on to the morning land saw not 

 divine truth in many ways with our eyes, and yet carried into 

 his earthly work, and into his homage to the Lord who 

 appointed it, that spirit of earnest manly adherence to the work 

 he did, and to the truths he held, which one must ever more 

 and more gladly recognize as a glory common to all churches, 

 and to all lives given up in loving self-sacrifice for the advance- 

 ment and instruction of others." This was the pervading 

 feeling in the Denomination to which he once belonged : and 

 indeed the tie was not severed from those of its members whose 

 faith is a religion, not a theology, who claim for others, as for 

 themselves, the right and duty of private judgment, and feel 



