In one of her last letters she wrote "Tell me, how is it that what seems so far off to us is near to you." She was a beautiful soul and found peace in Christ.
he received hundreds of letters from him, and they are very interesting reading. What chiefly attracted him to the Maréchale was her intimacy with Christ, which was the reward, as he saw, of self-sacrifice. His words on this theme go very deep.
"It is a struggle hard and long, but it is only the struggling, who spend their life-blood in the cause, that can claim _blood_-relationship with the Lord Jesus. The rest are second-cousins or not even as near as that. They don't know Him very intimately or feel much at home with Him when they pay Him a morning call.... He makes the entrance high and the gate strait that it may be prized when gained--I believe that is the key to the mystery of life, or at least to a large part of it. To let us up to the top for the prayer of a moment and the sacrifice of nothing would in many cases at any rate be impossible and useless. Tell me soon more of how to climb. I am a slow learner."
Mr. Crossley's nature had a pensive strain which the Maréchale's friendship helped to modify. Regarding such a matter he felt that "speech should not go near the length of feeling," but ere long we find him writing, "Das hallelujah Vögelein singt in meinem Herzen."
His donations to the work of the Army both at home and in France were very generous. He gave the Maréchale many thousand pounds a year. His liberality was part of his worship of Christ. Nothing could be finer than the following: "I know you will be thinking it is a serious slice off my capital. Well, it is a branch off the tree. 'They broke off branches from the palm trees and strewed them in the way and shouted Hosanna,' and so do I." And again: "You are very grateful to me for what I have been able to give you, but if you knew how indebted and grateful I also felt to you, you would see how God makes us unequal that we may teach ourselves by the aid and necessary services He enables us to render." Mr. Crossley wished the Maréchale to accept a gift of £10,000 for the maintenance of her family, that she might be personally free from financial care, and also offered to build her a home outside Paris, but she declined both these offers, not wishing to be in a different position from the other officers of the Army.