Martha Dean's Warning

Regulars will know that GB and others have renovated and improved the chapel’s downstairs rooms. Their decoration and furnishing is tastefully modern, yet a salient reminder of both the chapel’s heritage and theology hangs upon that newly painted wall: a former member’s tapestry sampler entitled: Martha Deans Work 1835. She stitched:

O may my thoughts for ever keep

The grave and heaven in view

Lest if my zeal and courage sleep

My lips grow silent too

Anne Walmsley made the neighbouring tapestry, which is less theological but no less pretty, declaring her age as being 10. It may be that children once again fill those rooms with their voices and antics; may the Lord reveal to them the solemn truths he showed Martha those two centuries ago. While alive, may we consider death; while strong and vigorous, may we consider approaching weakness. Death shall claim us as it once claimed those two girls; our youth and beauty is only as temporal as theirs. One day our lovely new room will appear tired and dated; one day the eyes that read this and the hand that types it shall be still as stone.

Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing. Proverbs 31:30

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. John 11:25