Endearing title! wilt Thou be A husband, O my God, to me? Then, let me never grieve Thy love, Nor ever disobedient prove; Watchful Thy pleasure to obey, Thy precepts study night and day; Thy will at all times gladly do: _I will_. Lord help me to be true.
"Had all the preachers to breakfast with a friend or two beside,--hoping the hour might be spiritually improved. Singing and prayer were sweet, but I was disappointed in the conversation, which was turned by two individuals upon a point that profited little; one thing I learned, to expect profit in the creature is not right,--Tried to bring about, and by means of another, effected a reconciliation between two opposing parties.--'Who will this day consecrate his services to the Lord?' was a question put to me this morning before I awoke, and has been urged upon me since. Thank God, my heart responds--_I will_. As I was walking, musing, and praying, it was whispered to my soul, 'My God shall supply all your need.' It is enough.--Again privileged to hear the Rev. Robert Newton. I sat in my Father's banqueting-house with delight, and His banner over me was love.--Fifty-four years this day, I have proved the sustaining power of God; and forty-two or nearly so, have enjoyed His redeeming love. O what a debter am I! Here will I give myself away--'tis all I can do."
This day of consecrated rest, Proclaim within my longing breast 'I am the Lord thy God;' Here dwell and reign without control, Sole monarch of my willing soul, According to Thy word.
"I HAVE LENT HIM TO THE LORD; AS LONG AS HE LIVETH, SHALL HE BE LENT UNTO THE LORD."--1 Sam. i. 28.
"Neither will I offer burnt-offerings to the Lord of that which cost me nothing," said David, when he purchased the threshing-floor, and the oxen of Araunah the Jebusite, that he might rear and altar, and offer sacrifices, and peace-offerings: and yet it was a nobler act of sacrifice, when he poured out before the Lord the crystal draught which three of his mighty men had procured from the well that was by the gate of Bethlehem, at the peril of their lives, and for which he had so earnestly longed. In the one case he gave what he could well afford; in the other, he consecrated what his soul desired. The preciousness of the gift is to be estimated, not by its intrinsic value, but by the amount of sacrifice which it requires; hence, some who bring much, offer little, and some who give but little, offer much. Genuine love to God brings of its choicest and dearest, and the sacrifice is accepted accordingly. To give money as far as she had ability, was to Mrs. Lyth no sacrifice. Through life she practised a rigid economy, that she might have the more to employ for God; and during the last few years, when she had an ample income at her own disposal, after her few and extremely moderate wants were met, the whole was sacredly consecrated to public and private charities. She saved nothing. Her estimate of the riches of this world may be collected from the following, communicated by a friend:--"She was much saved from the love of money. I called upon her one day for advice and sympathy, when I was in great trouble in consequence of a loss which I had sustained. She very affectionately encouraged me to bear up under the trial, and said, the Lord had some better thing in store for me;--that I must set my affections on things above, and then, to show that I was not alone, told me that a thousand pounds had been left to her mother by a deceased relative, which she had fully expected would revert to her, as it was the intention of the testatrix; but it proved to be a lapsed legacy. She added, 'The Lord so graciously sustained me, that the loss never deprived me of a single hour's sleep. He knows what is good for us, and If it had been His will, I should have had it.' Mr. Lyth, who was in company with us at the time, said, 'So you see my wife turns all to gold,' which it is well known she did. Oh! I wish I was like her." But if she estimated worldly wealth only so far as it afforded her the pure gratification of doing good, and it was therefore no sacrifice to her to give of her earthly substance; she also gave that which cost her something. Her eldest son, Richard, whom she prized above gold, and all the more, because of the tears and solicitude which she had expended upon him as a sickly and delicate infant, was at the Conference of 1836 appointed to a distant and perilous sphere of missionary labour. This was a demand upon her feelings, which severely tested her love to Christ and His church; but the spirit in which she made the sacrifice, is best displayed by her own private record.