One of my happy memories of Ebrington, a place of many happy memories to me, is the remembrance of the visits I paid to Mrs. Spencer, who passed from Ebrington to heaven whilst I was there. She lived about a quarter of an hour’s walk from the Vicarage on the Hidcote Road. I was asked to go and see her by the devoted Vicar, the Rev. W. J., Guerrier, and it was my privilege to spend some happy seasons, of prayer and praise with her. All through her life her one thought had been to exalt Christ, and during her last illness she was so anxious that everyone should know that she was trusting in Jesus only, and in nothing that she had done. She said to her daughter, “Tell everybody I am only trusting in Jesus.”
At another time, about three weeks before she passed away, she said, “If anyone were to tell you Annie I had been a good woman, or that I had lived a good life, you stop them. If I were to trust in anything but the blood of Jesus, I should be lost.”
She said many beautiful things in these last days about Christ, and her trust in Him, to me and to others, and especially to her daughter. About a week before the end hymns were being sung in the home, and she joined very heartily in the chorus of one of them:
“Ah ‘twas love, ‘twas boundless love,
The love of God to me―
It brought my Saviour from above,
To die on Calvary.”
Then she asked them to sing to her the hymn―
“How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than, to you He hath said―
To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?”
This beautiful hymn was sung, through―the hymn our fathers and mothers loved to sing.
“E’en down to old age My people shall prove
My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love,”
and then on to the triumph of the last verse,
“The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,
I will not―I will not―desert to its foes;
That soul―though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never―no, never―no, never―forsake!”
With her feeble voice she laid emphasis on this verse especially the last two lines, of glorious promise and everlasting security.
“That soul-though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never―no, never―no, never―forsake!”
she repeated over and over again― “Never, never.”
About three days before the summons came she was very tired and she said to her daughter, “Annie, If my heavenly Father stops my breath before I wake again, remember it will be His will, and it will be quite right-everything has been done that can be done, and I shall die trusting in my Saviour―in His blood and righteousness, and I shall trust him to present me faultless before the Throne.”
How beautiful this blessed trust in Jesus! Reader, is it yours? If you should die tonight, would you pass away trusting in your Saviour; in His blood and righteousness, and can you trust Him as dear Mrs. Spencer did to present you, faultless before the presence of His glory?
On her last night on earth about 8:30, she was talking to someone unseen. She said, “Oh I take my child with me.” And then she said, “Oh I satisfy me with Thy love Lord Jesus―satisfy me with Thyself now. ‘None but Christ can satisfy’ ―none.” Then she began to sing, but no one could tell the words she sang-perhaps, it was-the beginning of the eternal song in heaven that will never end for her.
And so the last hours on earth were, passed; the tired heart beating fainter as the sands ran out― then― on Thursday morning, March 7th at ten minutes to five, the Home call was given, and her happy spirit passed from Ebrington to heaven.
She was buried on the following Monday at Winderton. The hymn she chose to be sung at her funeral was the one sung at her husband’s burial.
“How sweet the name of Jesus sounds.”
Her memory is fragrant with love to Christ; and in these days of darling unbelief and denial of thee divinity of the Lord Jesus, it is blessed indeed to be brought into contact with one who loved her Lord, and trusted implicitly in His finished work.
Scientific unbelief can never say, “I know whom I have believed,” it can never rest with calm certainty upon the promises of God. The narrow confines of human life hedge in the skeptic; he sees and knows nothing beyond the portals of today―but before the Christian’s rejoicing eyes, wide vistas open, upon which the light of God is shining. Heaven itself is revealed to the eyes of faith, and the ladder Jacob saw, still reaches from earth to heaven, with the blessed feet of God’s own angels, ascending and descending on it. They bring down from heaven the hallowing blessings of the risen Christ to believing hearts, and take back to God the prayers and praises of redeemed and adoring lives. But it must be Christ. He is the only One Who can bring the blessings of heaven to us. He is the only One who can, through His precious blood, and righteousness, present us faultless before the presence of. His glory. May Mrs. Spencer’s faith in Christ exalt the Saviour she loved so well, and bring many of my readers to Him.