"ARE YOU INSIDE THE STRAIT GATE ?"

267

the light of forgiveness over her. And I clasped her hand and could only say, "Thank God!"

But I wanted to know better what she was resting on, because when people tell you how happy they are, we want the happiness to be on very firm ground. So I asked her, "When did you begin to grow anxious?"

But when

"It was that night when the sermon was about the strait gate. I thought I was on the right way ever since our other mission, nine years ago, but the preacher told us that the strait gate was down here, and that the narrow way came afterwards. I had thought that I was to get on the narrow way and that the strait gate was at death, so that if I kept on the narrow way I should get into heaven at last. Mr. Rowley said, "On which side of the gate are you?" I saw in a minute that I was on the wrong side, and that I was not safe. He asked us to stay to the after-meeting, but I did not. When I was going out he put his hand on my shoulder, and said with such a kind voice, "Are you inside the strait gate ?" I could not sleep all that night I was so miserable, and all the next day and night I got no rest, for I saw I was on the wrong side."

There was a little pause then.

Her words had come out very quick and fast, and she stopped a minute. I asked again, "Then what was it makes you so different now?"

And then she went on to the happy bit. "Well, two nights after that, Mr. Rowley preached on the wedding-garment, and he asked us all had we got it on, and told us that it was the righteousness of Jesus, and that it was quite free. Oh, I did want to have it on! Then came the after-meeting, and in the silence I saw the Lord Jesus suddenly before me, quite plain. His feet were very close to me, and I could see that they were wounded, and that they were wounded for me. And when I saw that, I knew that I had entered the strait gate, and was inside now. I would not have minded Mr. Rowley asking me now if I was on the right side, for I knew I was, and that it was for me Jesus had died."

Oh, the glad voice with which she told me! and I knew the happiness on her face had a good foundation, for now she was resting on what the Lord Jesus had done for her, and not any longer on her being on the narrow way, as she thought, and struggling to keep to it.

Jesus is the Door, and she had entered, and was on the right side of the strait gate now, and He would lead her all the way along the narrow road until she reached the wide open door of the heavenly city.

268

A VOICE THAT IS STILL.

But she had something more to tell me still. "My husband is just as happy as I am, miss. He was very miserable too, for he saw he wasn't right any more than I was. But he wasn't as long over it as I was, and found peace before I did; and now we are both so happy together.” Had she not good cause for her bright looks?

He and she are still on the narrow way, hand in hand following Jesus. They have been steady lights in their village ever since the happy day, two years and a half ago, when they entered the strait gate together.

I wonder if any of our readers have been making the same mistake she did? Will you take your Bible down, and turn to Matt. vii. 13, 14 : 66 Enter ye in at the strait gate . . . strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life." Are you among those who think that the strait gate means heaven, and that if you get on the narrow way by striving and struggling, then you will get inside at last? But it is not so. Jesus says, "I am the Door." It is now that we enter by Him, and then the narrow way stretches away from the other side of the strait gate all the way to the golden gate of opened Heaven. Once you are inside the strait gate, the Lord Jesus means to go all the way with you.

On which side of the strait gate are you?

A VOICE THAT IS STILL.*

URING the two years that have almost past since Esther Beamish's witness on earth for her Saviour ended, many loving friends have longed for "the touch" of her "vanished hand." While at Mildmay, and other places of Christian Conference, a still larger number of people, personally unknown to her, have missed the heaventaught words of that "voice that is still." These will all thank God that by her letters, woven into "memorials," she should still be permitted to speak for her Master.

Perhaps the strongest point in her Christian service was, that she found or made work for God wherever she was, taking it up instantly and in faith carrying it out with all the rigour of her strong will. It was this readiness that made it possible for her to do such a mass of various work in the ten years before her call home.

* "A voice that is still." Memorials of Esther Beamish. By her sister F. L. M, B., with a preface by Miss E. J. Whately. Messrs. Shaw & Co., Paternoster Row. 68. (To be published in December).

A VOICE THAT IS STILL.

269

After the death of her dear father the Rev. Hamilton Beamish, in 1872, which broke up the family circle, she was able to allow herself, as she said, "to be blown about " as God seemed to direct her.

The autumn of the same year saw her speaking at meetings for both French and English sailors at Lowestoft.

The spring of 1873 was spent in Belleville with Miss de Broën, who was ill, and then almost single-handed in work amongst the Paris Communists.

At the Derby and London Missions the same year, God used her words marvellously for the salvation of souls. In 1874 (against her own wishes, which urged her to return to Miss de Broën), she went to Belgium to aid Miss F. Percival. Their joint efforts were largely blessed, both at Spa and in Brussels; and, on her friend's death in 1875, she threw herself only too unselfishly into various labours there, the over work entailing a long and serious illness.

When only convalescent, in 1877, at Pau, she helped to set on foot a distribution of Gospels amongst the shepherds of the Pyrenees, which work has since been carried on with zest by Miss J. Yorke. The autumn saw the opening of the Chapelle Evangelique at Spa, which she had erected with funds collected by herself for the purpose.

At Jerusalem, in 1880, when travelling with a dear friend, she managed a distribution of Gospels to the pilgrims who were gathered at the Greek Easter, and the Bible Society readily took up her suggestion to continue this every year, and have since promised to keep it up as a memorial of her. The year she died she had the joy of seeing a Depot of the Bible Society started at Algiers, as a centre for North Africa.

Three foreign branches of the Mildmay Female Workers' Association were set going by her.

The time would fail to tell of the many projects which her ready sympathy and business capability enabled her to initiate; and, amid all these various calls on her time and attention, she was always one for whom relations and friends sent in sickness or sorrow. Her strong common-sense, brightness, and tender tact, making her presence bring with it a feeling of pleasure and rest.

As one of her last wishes she wrote that a Parsonage and Convalescent Home at Spa, for which she was collecting funds, should be completed; and this will shortly be done (D.V.), and built as a tribute to her memory, in connection with the "Chapelle." May God, by her means, reap many more souls for His heavenly garner!

270

THE GIVER.

THE GIVER.

"He that overcometh shall inherit all things."-REV. xxi. 7.

I rest as my Life upon Thee;ded) A And in death's dread conflict and strife JOHN XVIl. 2. Be my Succour-my Comforter be. adaiw

Lord Jesus! the Giver of Light, il bin of bigle

Oh! shed, shed that light o'er my heart,

JOHN viii. 12.

JOHN XIV. 21.

1938 JOHN XV. 11.

MATT. Xi, 28.

CHRISTMAS CHIMES FOR THE ORPHANS.

CHRISTMAS CHIMES FOR THE ORPHANS:

SHALL WE RING THEM?

271

BY SOPHIA M. NUGENT

E are looking out about Christmas now! Little fingers are beginning to prepare presents in secret for father and mother, to be such a surprise! And fathers and mothers are thinking of each little one, saying: "What Christmas present shall we give them ?" for the day on which the "our Father " gave His wonderful gift of the Lord Jesus to us is the great day of all the year for giving gifts to each other.

Before you spend all your money, will you take a journey with me and look in at some homes where there are plenty of children, but who will get no presents unless you give them. First eight hours in the train to Holyhead, and then steam across to Dublin. The Bird's Nest is quite full of little ones, and then in Dublin itself there are other homes full of poor destitute children, who would have been sleeping in barrels or on doorsteps all night if kind friends had not helped them for Jesus' sake. You have made them very happy for several Christmases, will you again? The Dublin needs are very great, for there are 2,000 children to be looked after, and every pair of socks is a help, and every sixpence is thankfully received and will buy several hot breakfasts for poor little cold children who come in to lessons without having had anything to eat.

As you look in and say, "I am a friend of yours from England," or "from Scotland," they will set up such a cheer and welcome you with feet and hands and voices, and sing you one of their bright hymns about Jesus, and you will leave with a glow at your heart and saying, "I must help them to have a happy Christmas."

Then we travel on for eight hours more, till we come to Westport in Galway. Castle Kerke, of which our illustration gives us a view, is in Galway, and is the place where the first direct missionary effort was made in 1846, of which these Orphanages are some of the fruit. At Westport we get out of the train and drive in an open car for fifty miles. The end of our journey finds us at Glenowen Orphanage, Connemara. There are thirty-five happy inmates, though all are orphans rescued from great poverty. They are all girls here, except four or five baby boys. They have all