IN a wild and beautiful part of the County Tipperary, there lived, some years ago, a poor Christian woman. She was destitute in circumstances, dependent on the bounty of others, and lodged in the cabin of some peasants who were poor like herself. She suffered in body from a terrible disease, which was daily getting worse and worse. At last the people with whom she lodged could no longer bear to witness her sufferings, and told her she must leave. She had neither house nor home to which she could turn for shelter, and she was in want of the bare necessaries of life, not to speak of those comforts by which anguish and sorrow are often soothed and supported.
What do you think were her feelings when so tried? A gentleman who lived in the neighborhood was directed by a peasant to a road she had been seen to take when turned out of the cabin. Coming to a kind of cave in the side of a hill by the roadside, he thought he heard a low moaning sound, and, dismounting from his horse, he crept near to the edge, bending down to listen. Was it a sound of misery that met his ear? Ah, no! but of blessing and praise. “Oh! my precious Lord Jesus, I would not exchange what I have in Thee for all there is in this wide world. I would not exchange my poor rags, and all my pains and sickness, to be the healthiest, finest dressed lady in the county, for I have all in Thee, Lord Jesus, and Thou art all in all to me.”
“I entered once a home of care,
Old age and penury were there,
Yet peace and joy withal:
I ask’d the lonely mother whence
Her helpless widowhood’s defense?
She told me ‘Christ was all.’
Christ is all, all in all,
Yes, Christ is all in all;
Christ is all, all in all,
Yes, Christ is all in all.”