The Portland daily press., 1895-09-21
Word From Mrs. Luscomb.

To the Editor of the Press:
Some of the readers of your paper who
were pleased with the articles on Rev.
Benjamin Luscomb and the dark land
which you SO kindly printed some months
SINCE have requested me to occasionally
send them another word, through your
columns, concerning the brave woman
toiling alone beside her graves.
Perhaps these interested ones have not
yet heard that Mrs. Luscomb was obliged
to send her little son, Ralph, back to the
home land to save his life. 1t is even so.
His seemed to be just the constitution
susceptible to malaria and being lively,
restless child he knew not how to adapt
his boundless spirits to the caution neces-
sary to withstand the climate He left
her May IA, and it was not until July Is,
that she received news of his safe arrival
in Liverpool and August 1, a letter from
New York announced the completion of
his journey and his welcome into the
home of his mothers sister, Mrs. Small,
of Lynn, Mass.
This bereaved mother in a letter dated
at Makomp, Aug. 8, thus writes;
~ will not try to tell you of the suffer-
ing of the hour when | said good bye to
nv dearest earthly treasure and listened
to the splash, splash of the oars as he was
carried down the river TO take the steamer
that was to bear him from my side. But
rather let me tell you of the consolation
of His grace as fled to Him for refuge.
Hallelujah What Saviour p
ttn..,, I,ro vo 1ittla fal1Ovv his father G
own child,n she calls her son ~ telling
how at first he refused TO listen to any
word concerning a parting from her.
But he was finally convinced of it's
necessity and yielded his preference when
he saw his life was involved and it would
please "MotheIdie."
"You may DO sure journeyed with him
in spirit and comprised him about with
nrayer', she continues. II feel God has
taken tho matter into His own hands and
T have only to wait His next leading If it
were not for the fact that Christ included
in His list of sacrifices for the Gospels
sake our children Mark 10: 29) I would
have been in doubt concerning my course
of action, but as it is I could not be for
| am in no doubt that thus far ! am in
His will. What lie may reveal as time
ooes ON only wait to know l must be
in Gods will. 1t has become the one
necessity of my life and sweeter than life
itself. ~
She speaks of learning to look on these
moor perishing souls sitting in darkness as
Jesus does that she may endure the cross,
despising the shame. And wishes she
conid tell US how the "tender love of
Jesus makes His grace abound toward her
in her proving and asks Him TO reveal it
unto us by His spirit"
referring to her dead she says "after
all it is only these perishing members
that are separated from Christ and the
loved ones. In His and their thought we
are there too And she adds quotation
from little book that has oomforted her.
Let me give it for the comfort of any
mourner who may read these lines.
snrhey are above us bllt not too much
above us. They are still branches of the
same Vine; members of the same Body.
The branches CT the tree are equally near
to each other, whether the sunlight shine
on all, or only on one branch. The hand
in the shadow and the hand in than We
are not more near to each other, the light
are to them. If one hand is in tho light
and one in the shadow, they are not
really more separated than when both
were in the light or both in the shadow.