HUDSON TAYLOR The man who believed God by Marshall Broomhall

LIKE AS A FATHER 143
"I know not how to write to you, nor how to refrain. I
seem to be writing almost from the inner chamber of the
King of kings-surely this is holy ground. I am striving to
write a few lines from the side of a couch on which my darling
Gracie lies dying. Her complaint is hydrocephalus. Dear
brother, our flesh and heart fail, but God is the strength of
our heart and our portion for ever.' It was no vain nor unintelligent
act, when knowing the land, its people and climate,
I laid my dear wife and the darling children with myself on
the altar for this service. And He whom so unworthily, and
with much weakness and failure, we are and have been endeavouring
to serve in simplicity and godly sincerity, has
not left us. Ebenezer and Jehovah-Jireh are still dear words
to us."
The dread complaint rapidly ran its course, and on
the 29th he wrote again:
"The Lord has taken our sweet little Gracie to bloom in
the purer atmosphere of His own presence. Our hearts bleed;
but
"'Above the rest this note shall swell­
Our Jesus hath done all things well.'"
Writing a little later to his own mother at home,
who had also known the loss of loved children, he
added:
"Our torn hearts will revert to the one subject, and I
know not how to write to you of any other. Our dear little
Gracie! How we miss her sweet voice in the morning, one of
th~ first sounds to greet us when we woke-and through the
day and at eventide! As I take the walks I used to take with
her tripping at my side, the thought comes anew like a throb
of agony, 'Is it possible that I shall never mQre feel the pressure
of that little hand, never more hear the sweet prattle
of those dear lips, never more see the spafkle of those bright
eyes?' And yet she is not lost. I would not have her back
again."