A Resting Place

Having been laid aside by illness, I have had to give up my practice for a few weeks. Some part of this time had to be spent in bed, and then I went to the quietude of Rockford Villa, Brendan, North Devon, when my good friend and hostess does all she can to help me on the bed of convalescence. This is the same quiet, beautiful spot that to write the “Memories of the Life and Last Days of WAR of W. Kelly” in 1909. Here the voice of many waters is heard day and night as the Lyn pursues its musical way over boulders and down the cascades from its heather cradle on Exmoor to the sea at Hamouth. And many a lesson have I learned from the foaming stream, as I have walked along its banks down to Watersmeet and Lynmouth; or upwards to its source by Maims-mead and Bagworthy, to where, under the shadow of Dunkery Beacon, it has its birth. It goes singing all the way from moorland solitudes to the embrace of the absorbing sea. Its talking waters pass over stony beds, through sweet Devonshire meadows bright with tender flowers, through bracken and gorse golden with yellow glory, underneath o’erarching trees, or thundering down a rocky chasm: a sweet voice praising God, anon forming pools of solemn beauty, speaking the deep content, of God. But on and ever on, obeying the call of the restless sea, until at last, o’er shining sands, the journey ends in the embrace of the glorious ocean.
So should our lives be: a psalm of praise to God. ‘Mid light and shade, by day and night, making melody to God from the cradle to the grave. Here by the talking waters have I been able to write about our work for God among the soldiers and the sailors. Here have I spoken with the men in the trenches as they wrote me fragments of the story of the Great War. I have been able to enter in larger measure while here into the needs of the brave fellows at the Front. My daily post has brought me hundreds of letters that I have loved to answer. I trust that the story told of need and opportunity will move your hearts to help still more the work of God and enable us to send the many thousands of Testaments to soldiers and sailors that are so greatly needed now. If I have to refer to myself in this narrative it will be simply because I cannot write without doing so. It is the work that God has given me, and I have done it for God. I have thrown all my heart and energies into the work because I loved it so, and feel how needful it is in these sad days for every servant of Christ to do his best. And as the waters of the Lyn do their little part in helping to swell the volume of the seal so we should do the work that is allotted to us, and so help to fill the ocean of opportunity that lies before all God’s people today.