VISION FOR MORE OUTREACH DESPITE PERSECUTION IN INDIA

Christians are suffering increasing amounts of persecution across India. Some suggest that a Christian is brutally attacked by a Hindu extremist every other day. There doesn’t appear to be an end to the violence. However, this violence isn’t stopping the evangelical church from expanding their work, reports MNN.

President of Serve India Ministries Ebenezer Samuel says they are currently supporting 400 pastors who are also missionaries and church planters. Each pastor has a mission, he says, “to reach out to five unreached villages through the church he’s already planted.”

Samuel says these pastors and their congregations also have a new vision to reach the lost. “They have a vision of reaching out to 100,000 villages through 20,000 native works in the next 15 years.”

While Serve India supports 400 pastors, even that number is changing. “We have 400 pastors at this time. This year, 2009, we’re praying to double this number. We’re not concerned about numbers; we’re more concerned about the needs on the field. I’m constantly receiving calls from these unreached communities of India,” where church planters and missionaries are needed.

They have a few pastors to help with these needs, says Samuel. “Right now we have at least 100 pastors who are part of the ministry who have no support. And we’re also setting up many more mission fields. So in the next two months, we’re going to be having at least 200 more pastors who are going to need support.”

Report from the Christian Telegraph

AUSTRALIA: NEW SOUTH WALES – New Disaster Threatens

A new disaster now threatens Australia following the bushfire disaster in Victoria and the flood disaster in Queensland. Coastal New South Wales is bracing itself tonight for a severe weather onslaught that may last until the weekend.

A low pressure trough and pressure system is deepening off the coast, with strong winds and heavy rain already lashing the coast. The weather is expected to intensify overnight, with gales and heavy rain over the next 72 hours.

However, the weather has already turned nasty, particularly on the north coast with severe flash flooding and massive seas already wreaking havoc on the coast. Within the last hour or so it has been reported that some 4000 people have been stranded by flooding that closed many roads including the Pacific Highway. A mother and small child are missing in flood waters after being swept away in flash flooding.

A number of rivers are on flood alerts and watches tonight, from the Queensland border south to Sydney. Some of the worst affected areas thus far include Coffs Harbour, Bellingen and Dorrigo. Already some 180 mm of rainfall has fallen in three hours in the north.

BELOW: The swollen river at Dangar Falls, Dorrigo

ABOVE: Rising flood waters in Sawtell

 

LAOS: POLICE DESTROY CHURCH BUILDING IN VILLAGE

Destruction carried out while Christians attend compulsory village meeting.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand, March 30 (Compass Direct News) – Police in Borikhamxay province, Laos, on March 19 destroyed a church building in Nonsomboon village while Christian residents attended a meeting called by district officials.

A member of the provincial religious affairs department, identified only as Bounlerm, has since claimed that police destroyed the worship facility because it was built without official approval.

Tension between the Christians and local authorities escalated last year when officials ordered at least 40 Christian families living in Ban Mai village to relocate some 20 kilometers (12 miles) to Nonsomboon for “administrative reasons,” according to advocacy group Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom (HRWLRF). Local sources said the forced relocation to Nonsomboon village was an effort to control the activities of Christians in Ban Mai who were sharing their faith with other people in the district.

Previously authorities had evicted Christians from several other villages in the district and relocated them to Ban Mai village, HRWLRF reported. Families were expected to cover their own relocation expenses, including the cost of rebuilding their homes and re-establishing their livelihoods.

Initially residents refused to relocate a second time, largely because officials would not grant permission to move their existing church building or to erect a new structure in Nonsomboon. Eventually they were forced to move to Nonsomboon under duress.

Lacking worship facilities, the villagers on Dec. 10, 2008 erected a simple church building. On Dec. 26, village police removed the cross from the building, summoned four key church leaders to a meeting at the Burikan district office and subsequently detained them for building a church without government approval.

HRWLRF identified the four only as pastor Bounlard, assistant pastor Khampeuy, church elder Khampon and men’s ministry leader Jer. When the wives of the four men brought food to them during their detention, officials refused to allow them to see their husbands.

In a meeting on Dec. 27 between provincial religious affairs officials and church leaders, officials said police had arrested the Christians because they refused to tear down the church building. A senior religious affairs official identified only as Booppa, however, agreed to release the Christians on Dec. 29.

The Christians of Nonsomboon then applied for permission to hold a Christmas service in their church facility on Jan. 7 and invited religious affairs official Bounlerm to attend. When permission failed to arrive in time, they conducted the service regardless, with Bounlerm and other district officials attending as honorary guests.

During the service, district and village level police officers charged into the building and ordered church members to cease worshiping. Bounlerm encouraged the congregation to follow orders from the local officials.

Police officers then drafted a document ordering church members to abandon the Christmas celebration and demanded that the congregation sign it. When they refused, the police insisted that they disband the meeting immediately. After leaving the building, the congregation traveled to nearby Burikan town and set up a tent in an open field next to a government office in order to complete the Christmas service, as there were no church facilities in Burikan.

A campaign of intimidation followed, according to HRWLRF, culminating in the destruction of the church building by village police on March 19. At press time, no information was available on the content of the meeting called by district officials on that day.

Report from Compass Direct News

BELARUS ORTHODOX CHURCH SEEKS APPROVAL TO REGULATE INTERNET

Metropolitan Filaret of Minsk and Slutsk offered the Byelorussian state to regulate Internet at the legislative level, reports Interfax-Religion.

“There’s an urgent need to effectively regulate the contents of Internet at the legislative level,” Metropolitan Filaret said on Friday at the meeting between the country’s president Alexander Lukashenko and members of the Byelorussian Orthodox Synod.

The Metropolitan believes Byelorussia can use Chinese experience where “responsibility for using Internet lays on Internet providers instead of the state.”

According to Metropolitan Filaret, “Internet is an open door to the world and has enormous influence on people’s minds.”

“The main threat is that most vulnerable categories, children and teens have easy access to immoral information, while their psyche is unstable. Virtual chaos is very dangerous for them,” the Metropolitan said.

He hopes that the state will pay attention to the problem of “open access to dirty resources.”

Report from the Christian Telegraph

BRITAIN IS ONE OF THE LEAST RELIGIOUS NATIONS IN EUROPE

Britain is one of the least religious nations in Europe, according to a major survey by the European Union to be published next month, reports Jeremy Reynalds, correspondent for ASSIST News Service.

Writing for Britain’s Daily Telegraph, Lois Rogers said that according to the study, only 12 per cent of Britons feel they “belong” to a church, compared with 52 per cent in France.

It also found that the UK has one of the highest rates of “fuzzy faith,” or people who have an abstract belief in God and a poorly defined loyalty to Christian traditions.

The Telegraph reported that the study, conducted as part of the influential EU-funded European Social Survey, will be seen as an indicator of a shift in attitudes and values.

Professor David Voas, of Manchester University’s Institute for Social Change, who led the project, said the UK was involved in what he called a “long process of disestablishment,” with Christianity gradually being written out of laws and political institutions.

“Christian faith will soon have no role among our traditional establishments or lawmakers,” the Telegraph reported he said. “It remains to be seen for example, how much longer bishops will be allowed to sit in the House of Lords.”

The Telegraph said he added, “Fuzzy faith is a staging post on the road to non-religion. Adults still have childhood memories of being taken to church, and they maintain a nostalgic affection for Christianity but that is dying out. They still go along with the some kind of religious identity but they’re not passing it on to the next generation, and people who aren’t raised in a religion don’t generally start one as adults.”

However, Professor Linda Woodhead, of Lancaster University, who is leading a long-term £8.5 million government research program on the role of religion in society, disputed Voas’ conclusions.

“Just because you’re not religious, it doesn’t mean you’re not spiritual or moral,” the Telegraph reported she said. “A lot of people simply don’t want to take the whole package of religion on board.”

The Telegraph reported that the study, to be published in the European Sociological Review next month, not only charts the declining interest in religion of successive generations, it also concludes that there is no evidence to support the idea that interest in religion resurfaces as people age.

The Telegraph said that while “new wave” religions like Scientology, Kaballah or the Moonie faith, have received considerable media coverage because of their association with Tom Cruise, Madonna and other celebrities, the number of followers remains tiny.

The survey, which questioned more than 30,000 people in 22 countries, found only five nations – Slovenia, Sweden, Norway, Holland and Belgium – reported lower levels of church membership than Britain.

The Telegraph said some observers have argued that the Anglican church ought to do more to retain the “fuzzy faithful,” and draw the uncommitted back into the pews.

Report from the Christian Telegraph

PAKISTAN: LAHORE – Another Deadly Terrorist Attack

There was another terrible terrorist attack in Lahore, Pakistan, today. Terrorists have attacked a police training centre and killed some 20 people and injured another 90 from initial reports coming out of Pakistan.

Hopefully this attack will provoke the Pakistani government into seriously dealing with the Taliban and terrorists operating from within Pakistan. There seems to be a widely held view (including my own) that there are many within Pakistan supporting both the Taliban and terrorism – including a number of people with the Pakistan security forces.

BELOW: Some footage of the attack

AUSTRALIA: VICTORIAN BUSHFIRES UPDATE – 30 March 2009

There has been some incredible news out of Victoria today concerning the death toll from the bushfire disaster. The death toll has stood at 210 for some time and there had been fears that it would climb to above 300. However, the death toll has now fallen to 173, with the probability now being that the toll may fall further.

Why the dramatic fall in the official death toll and the estimated final figure? The reason given has been that the remains discovered were so terribly burnt and spread about, that the number of victims ‘found’ was impossible to accurately give. Some remains have now also been identified as not human. Obviously the remains were terribly burnt and there seems to have been very little left in many circumstances.

The fall in the death toll is certainly wonderful news, though the death toll is sadly still very high.

The roads around the devastated town of Marysville have today been reopened to the general public. The town’s residents have been allowed into the town for some time now.

BULAHDELAH HILL CLIMB ON TOMORROW

The ‘practice’ Bulahdelah Hill Climb is on tomorrow just north of Bulahdelah on the Old Pacific Highway (Wootton Way) at Wootton. The event is being organised by the Myall Lakes Motor Sports Club – based at Tea Gardens I believe.

The actual championship event at Bulahdelah will be held during September (2^nd) 2009 at the same venue.

http://www.hillclimbnsw.com/

A MEMOIR OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ANDREW FULLER: Thomas Ekins Fuller

This is the fourth chapter of the above-titled book. The earlier chapters can be found via the categories listing at the end of the post.

 

Chapter 4: Home Sorrows

MANY men who have gained their laurels at public work, have won the greenest in their homes. Most beautiful is it to see men who have much to do with public affairs not unmindful of “home life” and “childward care,” and performing all daily duties with tenderness and grace. John Bunyan, making his tags and blessing his blind child, was as great a man, surely, in the eyes of the “throng supernal” as when he was writing his wonderful dream.

Andrew Fuller had a little child, somewhat under six years of age, whose feeble health was a source of great anxiety to her parents. She appears at that early age to have gone for change of air to the house of Dr. Ryland, at Northampton. The first notice of her short history is given, in Mr. Fuller’s Diary, when he fetches her home from that city. Riding with his little one, he glances every now and then at her pale face and ill looks, and a shudder comes over his strong frame. There is some sad prophecy there of a deep shadow soon to fall upon his home. If he should lose her, it is inconceivable that he should sustain the shock. Then, what would be the future of his little child’s soul? He has been writing and feeling very much lately on accountability to God. Is she too young to give an account of the light shed upon her infant years? At all events he must not fail to teach her of that love which is worthy of even a child’s acceptation. So all the way home he tenderly discourses on eternal things to the little weak one, and ends with a fervent prayer to God for a blessing on his words.

On the following Wednesday evening, he goes into his study after service, and the darkness is still thick around him. He bends in prayer to God for resignation to his will. If he could but see the Saviour’s image in his little child, he thinks he could bear the loss even of one of the “dear parts of himself.” All the week he cannot escape from his sorrow. “Yet,” exclaims he, “the Lord liveth, and blessed be my rock.”

A few days afterwards the immediate disorder developed into an attack of measles, and the faint hope is cherished that the disease may be carried off by it, but it soon passes away. On the Sabbath he catechises the children, but the thought of his sick child haunts him all the while. “Lord’s day, March 19th,” he writes, “was a distressing day to me. My concern for the loss of her body is but trifling compared with that of her soul. I preached and prayed much, from Matt xv. 2-5, ‘Lord, help me.’ On Monday I carried her towards Northampton; was exceedingly distressed that night; went to prayer with a heart almost broken. Some encouragement from conversation with dear Brother Ryland. I observed that ‘God had not bound Himself to hear the prayers of any one for the salvation of the soul of another.’ He replied, ‘But if He has not, yet He frequently does so; and hence, perhaps, though grace does not run in the blood, yet we frequently see it runs in the line. Many more of the children of God’s children are gracious than of others.’ I know neither I nor mine have any claim upon the Almighty for mercy; but as long as there is life, it shall be my business to implore His mercy towards her.”

“Methought I saw, on Tuesday (21), the vanity of all created good. I saw, if God were to cut off my poor child, and not to afford me some extraordinary support under the stroke, that I should be next to dead to the whole creation, and all creation dead to me. O that I were but thus dead, as Paul was, by the cross of Christ! My heart seems to be dissolved in earnest cries for mercy.”

With touching simplicity he relates how from her birth he had cherished earnest solicitude on her behalf. “At the time of her birth,” he says, “I committed her to God, as I trust I have done many times since. Once in particular, viewing her as she lay smiling in the cradle, at the age of eight months, my heart was much affected; I took her up in my arms, retired, and in that position wrestled hard with God for a blessing; at the same time offering her up, as it were, and solemnly presenting her to the Lord for acceptance. In this exercise I was greatly encouraged by the conduct of Christ toward those who brought little children in their arms to Him for His blessing.” Speaking of her residence a short time at Northampton, he adds: “During this fortnight I went two or three times to see her; and one evening, being with her alone, she asked me to pray for her. ‘What do you wish me to pray for, my dear?’ said I. She answered, ‘That God would bless me, and keep me, and save my soul.’ ‘Do you think, then, that you are a sinner?’ ‘Yes, father.’ Fearing lest she did not understand what she said, I asked her, ‘What is sin, my dear?’ She answered, ‘Telling a story.’ I comprehended this, and it went to my heart. ‘What, then,’ I said, ‘you remember, do you, my having corrected you once for telling a story?’ ‘Yes, father.’ ‘And are you grieved for having so offended God?’ ‘Yes, father.’ I asked her if she did not try to pray herself. She answered, ‘I sometimes try, but I do not know how to pray; I wish you would pray for me, till I can pray for myself.’ As I continued to sit by her, she appeared much dejected. I asked her the reason. She said, ‘I am afraid I should go to hell.’ ‘My dear,’ said I, ‘who told you so?’ ‘Nobody,’ said she; ‘but I know if I do not pray to the Lord, I must go to hell.’ I then went to prayer with her, with many tears,”

As the sickness brought her nearer to the grave, the tender care of her father abounded yet more and more. When at Northampton, Dr. Ryland composed a little hymn especially for her use. Her father used to carry her out into the fields, and she would repeat to him the lines of this now well-known hymn:

“Lord, teach a little child to pray,
Thy grace betimes impart;
And grant Thy Holy Spirit may
Renew my youthful heart.

“A sinful creature I was born,
And from my birth have strayed;
I must be wretched and forlorn
Without Thy mercy’s aid.

“But Christ can all my sins forgive,
And wash, away their stain;
Can fit my soul with Him to live,
And in His kingdom reign.

“To Him let little children come,
For He has said they may;
His bosom then shall be their home,
Their tears He’ll wipe away.

“For all who early seek His face,
Shall surely taste His love;
Jesus shall guide them by His grace,
To dwell with Him above.”

He would then talk with her upon the desirableness of dying, and being with Christ and with holy men and women, and with those children who cried, “Hosanna to the Son of God!” “Thus,” he says, “I tried to reconcile her, and myself with her, to death, without directly telling her she would die.” One day he steals gently to her bed, and repeats the holy words: “And they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat; but the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall lead them unto living fountains of water, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”

But he was unable to bear up against the strain of this-continued anxiety; as it grew more apparent that his child’s sickness was unto death, he fell ill, and was unable to be at her side. Nothing can exceed the touching tenderness of his account of her last hours: “On the 25th, in particular, my distress,” he says, “seemed beyond measure. I lay before the Lord, weeping like David, and refusing to be comforted. This brought on, I have reason to think, a bilious cholic; a painful affliction it was, and the more so as it prevented my ever seeing my child alive again. Yes, she is gone! On Tuesday morning, May 30th, as I lay ill in bed in another room, I heard a whispering. I inquired, and all were silent! all were silent! – but all is well. I feel reconciled to God. I called my family round my bed. I sat up, and prayed as well as I could; I bowed my head and worshipped a taking, as well as a giving God. June 1st. I just made a shift to get up to go and attend the funeral of my poor child. My dear Brother Ryland preached on the occasion from 2 Kings iv. 26, – ‘It is well.’ I feel, in general, now, a degree of calm resignation. I think there is solid reason to hope that she has not lived in vain; and if she is but reared for God, it matters not when she died. I feel a solid pleasure in reflecting on our own conduct in her education; we endeavoured to bring her up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and I trust our endeavours were not in vain. Her visit to Northampton, too, was blessed for her good; she has certainly discovered ever since great tenderness of conscience, and much of the fear of God; great regard for the worship of God, especially for the Lord’s day; and great delight in reading, especially accounts of the conversion of some little children. But all is over now, and I am in a good degree satisfied.

“3rd. To-day I felt a sort of triumph over death. I went and stood on her grave with a great deal of composure! Returned and wrote some verses to her memory.

“4th. Had a good day in preaching on ‘these light afflictions.’ My mind seems very calm and serene, in respect of the child; but, alas! I feel the insufficiency of trouble, however heavy, to destroy or mortify sin. I have had sad experience of my own depravity, even while under the very rod of God!”

But the cup of his sorrow was not yet full. During his child’s sickness, another had been born to him; so strangely “death and life are mixed.” The circumstances attending this birth, amidst all the anguish of their watching over the little one whom God took from them, were too much to bear, and his beloved wife was seized with illness which led to distressing insanity, and ended in death. No biographer’s words can add to the picture of his grief, as given in his own bitter lamentation:-

“July 10th. My family afflictions have almost over-whelmed me, and what is yet before me I know not! For about a month past the affliction of my dear companion has been extremely heavy. On reading the fourth chapter of Job this morning, the 3rd, 4th, and 5th verses affected me, – ‘My words have upholden many. Oh that now I am touched I may not faint!’

“25th. O my God, my soul is cast down within me. The afflictions in my family seem too heavy for me. O Lord, I am oppressed, undertake for me! My thoughts are broken off, and all my prospects seem to be perished! I feel, however, some support from such Scriptures as these: ‘All things work together for good,’ &c. – ‘God, even our own God, shall bless us.’ – ‘It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed.’ One of my friends observed, yesterday, that it was difficult in many cases to know wherefore God contended with us. But I thought that there was no difficulty of this kind with me. I have sinned against the Lord; and it is not a little affliction that will lay hold of me. Those words have impressed me of late: ‘It was in my heart to chastise them.’”

In a letter to his father-in-law, he gives an affecting account of his wife’s sickness and death:-

“Aug. 25,1792,

“DEAR AND HONOURED FATHER, – You have heard, I suppose, before now, that my dear companion is no more! For about three months back our afflictions have been extremely heavy. About the beginning of June she was seized with hysterical affections, which, for a time, deprived her of her senses. In about a week, however, she recovered them, and seemed better; but soon relapsed again; and during the months of July and August, a very few intervals excepted, her mind has been constantly deranged. In this unhappy state, her attention has generally been turned upon some one object of distress; sometimes that she had lost her children; sometimes that she should lose me. For one whole day she hung about my neck, weeping; for that I was going to die and leave her! The next morning she still retained the same persuasion; but, instead of weeping for it, she rejoiced with exceeding joy. ‘My husband,’ said she, ‘is going to heaven . . . and all is well! – I shall be provided for,’ &c. Sometimes we were her worst enemies, and must not come near her; at other times she would speak to me in the most endearing terms. Till very lately, she has been so very desirous of my company, that it has been with much difficulty that I have stolen away from her about two hours in the twenty-four, that I might ride out in the air, my health having been considerably impaired. But lately her mind took another turn, which to me was very afflictive. It is true she never ceased to love her husband. ‘I have had,’ she would say, ‘as tender a husband as ever woman had; but you are not my husband!’ She seemed for the last month really to have considered me as an impostor, who had entered the house and taken possession of the keys of every place, and of all that belonged to her and her husband. Poor soul! for the last month, as I said, this and other notions of the kind have rendered her more miserable than I am able to describe. She has been fully persuaded that she was not at home, but had wandered somewhere from it; had lost herself, and fallen among strangers. She constantly wanted to make her escape, on which account we were obliged to keep the doors locked, and to take away the keys. ‘No,’ she would say to me, with a countenance full of inexpressible anguish, ‘this is not my home .. . . you are not my husband . . . these are not my children. Once I had a good home . . . and a husband who loved me . . . and dear children . . . and kind friends . . . but where am I now? I am lost! I am ruined! What have I done? Oh! what have I done? Lord, have mercy upon me!’ In this strain she would be frequently walking up and down, from room to room, bemoaning herself, without a tear to relieve her, wringing her hands, first looking upwards, then downwards, in all the attitudes of wild despair! You may form some conception what must have been my feelings to have been a spectator of all this anguish, and at the same time incapable of affording her the smallest relief.

“Though she seemed not to know the children about her, yet she had a keen and lively remembrance of those that were taken away. One day, when I was gone out for the air, she went out of the house. The servant missing her, immediately followed, and found her in the graveyard, looking at the graves of her children. She said nothing; but, with a bitterness of soul, pointed the servant’s eyes to the wall, where the name of one of them, who was buried in 1783, was cut in the stone. Then turning to the graves of the other children, in an agony, she with her foot struck off the long grass which had grown over the flat stones, and read the inscriptions with silent anguish, alternately looking at the servant and at the stones.

“About a fortnight before her death, she had one of the happiest intervals of any during the affliction. She had been lamenting on account of this impostor that was come into her house, and would not give her the keys. She tried for two hours to obtain them by force, in which time she exhausted all her own strength, and almost mine. Not being able to obtain her point, as I was necessarily obliged to resist her in this matter, she sat down and wept – threatening me that God would surely judge me for treating a poor helpless creature in such a manner! I also was overcome with grief: I wept with her. The sight of my tears seemed to awaken her recollection. With her eyes fixed upon me, she said . . . ‘Why, are you indeed my husband?’ – ‘Indeed, my dear, I am!’ – ‘Oh if I thought you were, I could give you a thousand kisses!’ ‘Indeed, my dear, I am your own dear husband!’ She then seated herself upon my knee, and kissed me several times. My heart dissolved with a mixture of grief and joy. Her senses were restored, and she talked as rationally as ever. I then persuaded her to go to rest, and she slept well.

“About two o’clock in the morning she awoke, and conversed with me as rationally as ever she did in her life: said her poor head had been disordered; that she had given me a great deal of trouble, and feared she had injured my health; begged I would excuse all her hard thoughts and speeches; and urged this as a consideration – ‘Though I was set against you, yet I was not set against you as my husband.’ She desired I would ride out every day for the air; gave directions to the servant about her family; told her where this and that article were to be found, which she wanted; inquired after various family concerns, and how they had been conducted since she had been ill: and thus we continued talking together till morning.

“She continued much the same all the forenoon; was delighted with the conversation of Robert, whose heart also was delighted, as he said, to see his mother so well. ‘Robert,’ said she, ‘we shall not live together much longer.’ – ‘Yes, mother,’ replied the child, ‘I hope we shall live together for ever!’ Joy sparkled in her eyes at this answer: she stroked his head, and exclaimed, ‘Oh bless you, my dear! how came such a thought into your mind?’

“Towards noon she said to me, ‘We will dine together to-day, my dear, upstairs.’ We did so. But while we were at dinner, in a few minutes her senses were gone; nor did she ever recover them again. From this happy interval, however, I entertained hopes that her senses would return when she was delivered, and came to recover her strength.

“On Thursday, the 25th instant, she was delivered of a daughter, but was all day very restless, full of pain and misery; no return of reason, except that, from an aversion to me which she had so long entertained, she called me ‘my dear,’ and twice kissed me; said she ‘must die;’ and ‘let me die, my dear,’ said she, ‘let me die!’ Between nine and ten o’clock, as there seemed no immediate sign of a change, and being very weary, I went to rest; but about eleven was called up again, just time enough to witness the convulsive pangs of death, which in about ten minutes carried her off.

“Poor soul! what she often said is now true. She was not at home; I am not her husband; these are not her children. But she has found her home, – a home, a husband, and a family better than these! It is the cup which my Father hath given me to drink, and shall I not drink it? Amidst all my afflictions I have much to be thankful for. I have reason to be thankful that, though her intellects were deranged, yet she never uttered any ill language, nor was ever disposed to do mischief to herself or others; and when she was at the worst, if I fell on my knees to prayer, she would instantly be still and attentive. I have also to be thankful that, though she has generally been afraid of death all her lifetime, yet that fear has been remarkably removed during the last half-year. While she retained her reason, she would sometimes express a willingness to live or to die, as it might please God; and, about five or six weeks ago, would now and then possess a short interval in which she would converse freely. One of our friends, who stayed at home with her on Lord’s days, says that her conversation at those times would often turn on the poor and imperfect manner in which she had served the Lord, her desires to serve Him better, her grief to think that she had so much and so often sinned against Him. On one of these occasions she was wonderfully filled with joy on overhearing the congregation while they were singing over the chorus, ‘Glory,
honour, praise, and power,’ &c. She seemed to catch the sacred spirit of the song.

“I mean to erect a stone to her memory, on which, will probably be engraved the following lines:-

The tender parent wails no more her loss,
Nor labours more beneath life’s heavy load;
The anxious soul, released from fears and woes,
Has found her home, her children, and her God.’

“To all this I may add, that, perhaps, I have reason to be thankful for her removal. However the dissolution of such a union may affect my present feelings, it may be one of the greatest mercies both to her and to me. Had she continued in the same state of mind, which was not at all improbable, this, to all appearance, would have been a thousand times, worse than death.

“The poor little infant is yet alive, and we call her name Bathoni; the same name, except the difference of sex, which Rachel gave to her last-born child. Mr. West preached a funeral sermon last night, at the interment, from 2 Cor. v. 1.”

The reader will see that this letter bears the date of 1792, the very year the mission was formed. Up to the time of this great affliction, we have seen how all the events of his life seemed to tend to the work of this year. To us these sorrows may read like a break in the chain; but surely the link is there, though our eyes “are too dim to see it.” There was no tenderness or chastened feeling which such sorrow could bring that was not needed in his holy employment. That touching tale of the death of “mother and child” may be read over and over again in the history of after years. In the tenderness of his letters to the missionaries, and in the daily surrender by which alone such toil could be endured, the sorrows of these years repeat themselves. If we had been fashioning his life, we might have said, when “The Gospel worthy of all Acceptation” had been written, and was doing its work in the church, “Now is the time to found the mission.” But God had to write deeper things on the soul of His servant before He gave such an enterprise into his hands. “His ways are not our ways, or His thoughts our thoughts.”

His relations to his family were sustained with much tenderness and some sternness. There was little confidential intercourse between him and his children; but his love welled forth even in his severity. The constant anxieties of his busy life no doubt stood in the way of a freer and more loving fellowship; but they had enough to cherish a love, perhaps the more full of reverence because there was little confiding familiarity in its exercise.

 

NOTE: I will be posting the entirety of this work on both this Blog and my web site at:

http://particularbaptist.com/library/memoir_fuller_contents.html

 

 

KIWIS LACK SENSE OF HUMOUR

A Blog site called ‘Fush ‘n’ Chups -  a guide for Australians to living and working in New Zealand,’ has been copping a fair bit of criticism of late. The controversy over the site has also appeared in newspapers, including this morning’s ‘Daily Telegraph’ in Sydney, Australia.

The site’s resident Blogger likes to have a bit of a dig at our Kiwi (New Zealand) neighbours, which appears to be typical of Australian tongue in cheek humour. However, the New Zealanders have been getting a little hot under the collar and have been posting a number of aggressive responses in their comments on the Blog and its various posts. The owner of the site believes that New Zealanders need to develop a sense of humour.

Perhaps he is right. Visit the site at:

http://fushnchups.co.nz