“DONT GIVE UP !”

White Ribbon, Volume 17, Issue 193, 15 July 1911, Page 7

“DONT GIVE UP !”

“ Are you tempted to give up that Mooddemanding work of yours? Are you saying, ‘ls it worth while’? Think of the story of Josephine Butler, that woman of frail body and mental refinement. She was continually tempted to say, Is it worth while ? Shall I keep on the bloody road, or return to the beautiful deanery ?’ You can hear her praying, and while she prayed, she chose. If you want to know what the Lord did for her, look at her face; it is transfigured. She prayed, she chose, and was illumined with the Light of Life.— Hr. -/. If. Jowett.

The above extract recalls to my memory the privilege which was mine some ten years ago, of having several inteiviews with Mrs Josephine Butler, in her widowhood and “feebleness extreme." She was occupying apartments with her maid in Cheltenham, England, having come for a quiet rest. The long continued and strenuous work which had exhausted her physical powers, had left her mental and spiritual strength unimpaired, and I felt much honoured in hearing something of her career of devotion to the cause of purity. Iler frail appearance, and the elegant, extremely sensitive character of her personality seemed the more pathetic as one noted the nervous twitch of her features, with the involuntary passing of the hand constantly across the wearied brow. And yet she rejoiced in the recollection of what she had been enabled to do and to suffer, in the crusade against organised evil, for so many years. I said, “ You are not able now to hold any meetings of the kind you used to address," and she replied, “ Oh, no, I hare spoken my voice away ! But I can still carry on a great deal of correspondence, so as to continue the work.” And I found this frail old saint was always at her writing for several hours early in the morning, in order to keep in touch with eminent personages in the various courts of Europe, to whom she replied in their own languages. How sadly she missed the devotion of her beloved husband who had passed to the Heavenly Home. Canon Butler had ever been her guide and encouragement in the Purity crusade, suffering with her and for her, the terrible obloquy of years gone by. Her brave effort aroused the attention of Christendom to the sad social evils of that day, with the urgent need for legislation and determined action to put down vice, and purify the national life. Her husband used to say, “I cannot do the work myself, or 1 willingly would do so. It must be done by a woman, one like yourself, and 1 will help you all I

can." And so he did, in every way possible. Mrs Josephine Butler s campaign is now scarcely realised by the present generation, but the world is much cleaner and more wholesome for her noble self-sacrifice and long sustained heroism. About six years ago, a resolution of grateful appreciation of Mrs Butler’s work, and of sympathy with her in her frail health, was passed by our New Zealand W.C.T.U. Convention, which I was, as Recording Secretary, privileged to write. Months after, that letter was returned to me, and 1 was sorry Mrs Butler had never received it. But she had been translated from this scene of exhausting and trying labour, to enter the Rest which (rod iiad provided for His faithful servant, where she will obtain her rich reward. Sister Moody Bell.