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Favell Lee Mortimer
Favell Lee Mortimer (July 14, 1802 – August 22, 1878) was a British author and educator whose evangelical writings preached salvation and moral instruction to children across the 19th century. Born in London, England, to David Bevan, a Barclays bank co-founder, and Favell Bourke Lee, she was the third of eight children in a wealthy Quaker family that moved to Hale End, Walthamstow, when she was six. Raised under evangelical influences like Rev. George Collison, she oversaw religious education on her father’s estates in Wiltshire and East Barnet, deepening her faith after a conversion in 1827. Mortimer’s preaching career took shape through her pen after marrying Rev. Thomas Mortimer in 1841, a popular London preacher whose ministry she supported until his death in 1850. Her sermons emerged in best-selling books like The Peep of Day (1833), which sold over 500,000 copies and was translated into 37 languages, delivering simple gospel truths to young minds with a stern emphasis on sin and hell. Works like Line Upon Line and More About Jesus extended her reach, blending education with evangelistic zeal, while later geographic titles like Near Home reflected her moral worldview. Widowed, she adopted a son, Lethbridge Charles E. Moore, and died at age 76 in West Runton, Norfolk, England.
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Favell Lee Mortimer preaches about the importance of seizing the opportunity to seek the Lord while His light is still shining upon us, warning against delaying and risking missing the chance for salvation. Jesus, in response to objections and cavils, emphasizes the limited time His light will be with the people, urging them to listen and learn before it's too late. The story of a farmer's laborer serves as a poignant reminder of the urgency to seek the Lord immediately, as we never know when our last opportunity for salvation may come.
John 12:34-36. Christ Exhorts the People to Believe While They Have the Light.
While ministers are preaching, their hearers are often answering them in their own minds. Satan never fails to suggest objections against the truth to all who are willing to listen to his whispers. He did not fail to attempt to extinguish the light of the truth when Jesus held it up. When those affecting words were pronounced, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me," the people, instead of receiving the truth, objected, saying, "We have heard out of the law that Christ abides ever; and how say you, 'The Son of Man must be lifted up;' who is this Son of Man?" This objection was not urged in a right spirit. If it had been meekly proposed, the gentlest of Teachers would have solved the difficulty. He could easily have explained it by saying, "The Son of man will be lifted up on the cross—then rise to live forever." The people were right in saying that the law had declared that Christ abides ever, because it is written in Ps. 41, "You set him before your face forever;" but they were wrong in the conclusion they drew. How diffident and humble we ought to be when we speak on divine subjects! Our understandings are so feeble, that we fall into mistakes continually. Our only hope of obtaining wisdom is by waiting with meekness on Jesus to be taught—"He will guide the meek in judgment." Instead of answering the cavils of the people, the Lord gave them a solemn warning. He saw with sorrow that they were wasting the little time during which they would enjoy his instructions. Therefore he said, "Yet a little while is the light with you." They knew not how very little while that light would shine. If these words were uttered on the day of our Lord's arrival in Jerusalem, (that is, on Sunday evening,) then there remained only three days more for him to teach, and for the people to learn. On Thursday it appears all classes were engaged in preparing the Passover, and on Friday in gazing on the crucified Savior. After that day none saw him but his own disciples. He taught the people no more. Who can tell how long he may retain the light he now enjoys? A child who has a godly parent knows not how soon that parent may die, and how soon the voice may cease that now prays so often with him, and so much oftener for him! There are many who would tremble if they knew how shortly their only opportunity of salvation will end. A minister who was preaching on the words, "Seek the Lord while he may be found," observed, "There may be some here who, if I had preached tomorrow instead of today, would then have been in that place where, if they sought the Lord, they would not find him." A farmer's laborer was deeply impressed by the sermon, and sought the Lord that very night. The next morning, as he was with his horses in the field, one grew restive, and, in rearing, struck him with the iron harrow on the temple, so that he died. Had that man delayed to seek the Lord but one day more, he would have been forever in darkness. With what feelings must lost spirits remember the last opportunity they neglected, the last sermon they disregarded, the last conviction they suppressed!
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Favell Lee Mortimer (July 14, 1802 – August 22, 1878) was a British author and educator whose evangelical writings preached salvation and moral instruction to children across the 19th century. Born in London, England, to David Bevan, a Barclays bank co-founder, and Favell Bourke Lee, she was the third of eight children in a wealthy Quaker family that moved to Hale End, Walthamstow, when she was six. Raised under evangelical influences like Rev. George Collison, she oversaw religious education on her father’s estates in Wiltshire and East Barnet, deepening her faith after a conversion in 1827. Mortimer’s preaching career took shape through her pen after marrying Rev. Thomas Mortimer in 1841, a popular London preacher whose ministry she supported until his death in 1850. Her sermons emerged in best-selling books like The Peep of Day (1833), which sold over 500,000 copies and was translated into 37 languages, delivering simple gospel truths to young minds with a stern emphasis on sin and hell. Works like Line Upon Line and More About Jesus extended her reach, blending education with evangelistic zeal, while later geographic titles like Near Home reflected her moral worldview. Widowed, she adopted a son, Lethbridge Charles E. Moore, and died at age 76 in West Runton, Norfolk, England.