251 – Sept. – 08 – This Day in Baptist History Past

 

Out of a Lonely Heart

 

1833 – Eliza G. Jones, wife of Rev. John Taylor Jones, missionaries to Burma and Siam, wrote the following from Bangkok, out of a lonely heart. “We feel that we are exiles from our native land, our beloved friends, the religious privileges we once enjoyed, and even from civilized life. Especially on the return of this day, on which we have been accustomed weekly to worship God in the assembly of his saints…When we look around on those among whom we dwell, and feel what it is to live in the midst of a ‘people of unclean lips,’ we are ready to cry with Israel’s psalmist, ‘My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord.’” Writing to her father, Rev. Henry Grew of Providence, R.I. concerning the death of their little daughter, she again shows us her heart: “I was able to throw myself into the arms of Jesus, and to enjoy the happiness of entire submission to the will of God….Life seemed but a moment, eternity a blessed reality. Heaven with all its glories was opened to the view of faith, and I exulted in the glorious anticipation of soon enjoying, with my dear child, its transporting visions; of seeing face to face that dear Savior Who died for us, and of bowing with her…in humble adoration at his feet…” [Mrs. L. H. Sigourney, Memoir of Mrs. Eliza G. Jones (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication society, 1853), p. 22. This Day in Baptist History II: Cummins and Thompson, BJU Press: Greenville, S.C. 2000 A.D. pp. 492-93.]  Prepared by Dr. Greg J. Dixon