Amy Carmichael :: Nor Scrip—18. Daisies

I do not think there is. Long ago Samuel Rutherford said he despaired to win to the far end of that love, there were so many plies in it. 'All other things are shadows, dreams, fancies and nothing.'

Over and over again we have had some rather large bill looming ahead: medical stores, for example, come to a fabulous amount these days, and cholera times in the villages round us consume quantities of some of the most expensive. These bills are paid at home and usually by the gatherings up of many little gifts.

'Lest man grown dazzled straining at the sun
Should find Him not and doubt what He had done,
God stooping, wrote upon the ground in daisies.'

'We got some very touching gifts for the sale. One was from a poor blind woman who is dying. She wished to give something, so asked a friend to look through her belongings. She had a shawl which had been knitted by another blind woman even poorer than she is. She bought it many years ago from her. This she gave to the sale, a beautiful shawl. When we told her it had been sold and that the price was £2 she said, "Do not think I gave so much. It cost me 7s. 6d. many many years ago." In case you think we were exorbitant (it is understood that there shall never be unfair prices charged in connection with our work) Mother had it valued. The value was £2 5s. to £2 10s. There was a poor girl who had nothing to give, so she gave any treasures she had. One was a workbasket, a present; also two cups and saucers.'

'It is such a joy to be able to send the enclosed.' (Most of our letters begin like that.) 'It is half the proceeds of the sale of three pieces of jewelry. The most valuable of these was left by my mother, and this made it very precious to me; but I could not withstand the impelling power of the Holy Spirit who was prompting me to give the best for Christ's sake. This was the thought He gave me: By turning this pendant into money for the Lord's work I should be laying up treasure in heaven where my dear one is, therefore it would be another link to draw us closer together.

'This jewelry was sold by auction and the reserve price was much lower than I thought it should be; but the auctioneer assured me it would not fetch much more. However, I was determined that it should, and I asked six friends to join with me in prayer on the day of the sale that the price might be run up. The result was that it was sold for £10 more than the reserve.'

That thought of laying up treasure in heaven came to the mother of the one to whose care this little book owes its setting forth of accounts, unconfused by the confusions of exchange. Her father had the large gold medal of Trinity College, Dublin, and the daughter had one too.

These treasures of years have been offered by her widowed mother, who, having given her only daughter, has with her also freely given all things she has to give. When it felt to us impossible to touch this so precious gold, the beautiful answer came, ' It is the only way by which I can keep it always.'

And there are givers whose gifts, as the angels see them, must appear as spiritual adventures in the land of Utmost Faith.

There is one, quite poor, so poor that a friend seeing her felt she must give her a little gift. A joyous look, more joyous than a personal good could have awakened, lighted the face of our friend, and she told the one who had given the gift that she had been praying for something to give to the two places just then laid upon her heart. One of the two was Dohnavur.

And again in the same kind land there is another who suffers greatly, and can usually only be relieved by surgical help. But once, lately, it was laid on her to pray for healing by the touch of the Lord alone, and that healing came. The sum thus set free was given to Dohnavur, for whose sake she had sought that so blessedly inexpensive touch of life. She too is one whose riches are not of this world's gold.

But space would fail to tell of the company of the Lord's own Poor, those who in very fact company with Him who had not where to lay His head. And how often, when such gifts came, even as at the coming of those great welcome cheques which lifted us over some 'impossible' thing, we have rejoiced to remember the invisible roll book, the book of the Lord's remembrance.

Daisies, we have called this chapter. The word is from a poem in a forgotten book, Lyrics from the Hills, by C. A. Fox.

From thy little snowy frill
Taking heaps of coined gold
With a hearty right goodwill,
In thy innocency bold
Thou dost offer back to God,
All unasked, thy precious load.

Not always heaps of coined gold, but precious with the love that is golden, the gifts come thus that help us to carry on.