OBITUARY.
Two old residents have passed from our midst during the past forty-eight hours. Miss Margaret Lambton, who died at her residence, Market street, Dunedin, last evening, was a native of Northumberland, and seventy years of age. The deceased, with her brother Edward, (now dead) came out to Melbourne some thirty-two years ago, and remained there for a few years, during which period she took part in a number of philanthropic movements. Miss Lambton then came over to Dunedin, her brother James (a wharf carter, now carrying on business in Jetty street) having preceded her here. During her sojourn in Dunedin Miss Lambton has proved herself a true benefactress to the widows and fatherless, and her own purse has always been open when demands for immediate relief have been made upon her. The deceased was intimately connected with the Servants' Home, the Dorcas Society, the Otago Bible Society, the Dunedin Women's Temporance Union, and the Female Refuge (of which she was one of the founders). Some few years ago she took in hand the distribution of children under the boarding-out system in connection with the Industrial School; and on the last occasion she was engaged on this work — some six months ago — she was climbing a hill at the North-east Valley, when she accidentally fell, and that was the inception of an illness from which she never rallied. The deceased, who had been attended by Dr Davies, died last evening very peaceably. Her face will be missed, not only by the recipients of charity, but by many on whom she had repeatedly made demands. -Evening Star, 26/4/1889.
THE LAW OF LOVE.
The Rev. W. A. Evans preached at the Moray place Congregational Church last evening, his text being Matthew xxv, 40: “Inasmuch as ye have done it Unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me,"
These words (said the preacher) bear us away froth the dead to the living, from the sorrow and bereavements of time to the joys and reunions of eternity. In them are laid open the true meaning and issues of life. Not a word about, thoughts, intentions, beliefs — these are but factors in life. Life itself is more than the sum of its parts. Life is truth at work, impersonated, and vindicating its reality through actual struggle, and endurance, and victory. Separate truth from conduct, and life is reduced to its lowest form, man is thrown out of harmony with God, and with the whole order of creation, God is love, and love is social lives not in solitude, but in society; exists as it reveals itself in created things and persons. God is light. Light exists in its self-manifestation. We know nothing of God, except through His works. He lives for us in the harmonies of the universe, and in the silent whisperings of our own hearts add minds. But our knowledge cannot be true and real until we adopt His method, and bring the truth we know into immediate relation with life. In other words, the truth of life can bo gained only by an actual performance of its duties — in no other way can truth be learned and the soul be saved. So we may say that life is a process from a lower to a higher kind of knowledge, through actual fulfilment of the duties imposed Upon us by our social relationships. So the Christ, in revealing to the world the issues of life, revealed at the same time the processes through which life grows, . . .
This evening our minds naturally think of a life which most beautifully illustrates the cardinal idea of the text — whose aim was the alleviation of suffering, the protection of the outcast, and the enlightenment of the ignorant. Benevolence was the spirit of Miss Lambton’s life. Even when she was a child it manifested itself in her sympathy with the poor children of the neighborhood. The burdens of humanity weighed heavily upon her young life; but still heavier was the indifference which characterised those whose boast was that they were the light of the world and the salt of the earth. In her fourteenth year she was brought into contact with the Rev. J. G. Rogers, one of England’s noblest sons, whose life has been one bold protest against oppression and tyranny in all their forms. We can well imagine what influence such preaching would have upon the sensitive spirit of the departed. Two weeks before her death the whole history was fresh and vivid to her mind. She said it was then for the first time that she began to understand Christianity. It became something more than a creed. It was nothing less than God’s grand ideal of redemption. Let those who will extol the beauty of a God calm as the unruffled sea, serene as the blue heavens, undisturbed by human woe and human agony; the God of love and boundless sympathy is the only God who could satisfy the heart of the departed. It was this that made her life one continued self sacrifice for the common weal. A few years elapsed, and we find her in Melbourne in the midst of a community where the sweet virtues that best adorn character were unknown. Collingwood, in Melbourne, was another edition of the East End of London; where intemperance, with its monstrous brood, had reduced family life into a seed plot for vice of every kind to grow in abundance; then, men and women too, valuing life only as it was productive of pleasures, the most unuatural that a morbid imagination could conceive. Then, think of the children, with no ray of sympathy and affection to cheer, no parental love to warm their young hearts, no atmosphere of purity wherein virtue alone can grow, no example of high and noble endeavor to wake admiration and stimulate reverence. Their lot was poverty of the extremest kind. Yet it was among these that the departed loved to labor. Her kind and gentle manner won for her victories where force would have been of no avail. She sought principally to save the children from falling into the same whirlpool as their parents, and by dint of perseverance she succeeded in bringing many to the Sunday school, where the principles of truth and justice might be implanted in their hearts. Her hope for humanity was centred, not in the men and women who were almost lost in their evil, but in the children who were entering into life. And here she was true to the noblest instincts of humanity. In the great struggle with sin, the departed sought among the boys and girls material which would catch the fire of love and righteousness and truth. And not in vain. She planted the seed iu many a heart, and was rewarded by seeing it taking root and bearing fruit. Of her work in New Zealand I need say but little. Twenty-seven years were spent in the work of benevolence. She was one of the principal actors in founding the female Refuge. By means of her tact she collected no less than L500 in order to form the nucleus of the institution. But this was not all. We have come into contact with many who are prepared to collect for and subscribe to charitable institutions, but who will not contribute their personal influence towards making the institution a success. But the highest giving cannot be expressed except by giving the heart — “the heart of the gift is the giving of the heart.” This she did. On many a stormy night has she left her home, in order to cheer by her presence the downtrodden and the outcast. Let women follow the example of the departed, and fling around these unfortunate ones the robe of sympathy, to shelter them from the cold blast of the ungenerous world. Let them whisper into their ears words of cheer and love, and the real object of the institution will be realised. Time will not allow us to attempt to follow her in her errands of mercy, nor into her room at night, where she worked for the poor, nor into homes darkened by sorrow and suffering. We may say of her that she went about doing good, seeking not notoriety, regarding not human commendation, content simply to do her duty, and to look to her God for approval. Her goodness was of that gentle unobtrusive order which courts obscurity, and loves to ameliorate the material and spiritual state of mankind without thrusting itself boldly on the public gaze. . . .
No doubt, it will be a seeming and a fitting thing to place over her mortal remains some lasting monument, which may tell to strangers the illustrious name of her that lies beneath, but which cannot tell to the people of Dunedin more than they already know, and should ever remember. If she were asked what inscription might be written on her tomb, the unselfishness of her heart and her own dislike of personal fame would have replied in the words of Sir Christopher Wren’s immortal inscription: “If thou seekest her monument, look around.” In the undying traces of her good work in Melbourne and Dunedin that inscription is uneffaceably written. It may be that as the founder of any great institution her name may not be handed down to posterity; but if modest, practical human endeavor; if unwavering effort to allay suffering and promote human happiness; if complete forgetfulnessof self in a disinterested attempt to increase the sum of human well-being — if these, as I believe, constitute the highest title to lasting fame, the fame of a life full of strenuous spiritual aspiration and genuine Christian courage — then Margaret Lambton has unconsciously yet surely written her name upon the records of this community in characters that time will not efface. The man of wealth may give of his abundance; the man of culture may give of his taste; the man of science may give of his knowledge; but all combined cannot infuse vitality into a new scheme for the advancement of human happiness and the extirpation of human vice. Only the quiet unceasing labors of the hidden worker can do this — only the whole-souled energy of unselfish toil that looks not for reward. Spasmodic fits of benevolence, occasional spurts of sympathy, are of no avail in overcoming an ever-present enemy. Nothing but a dauntless faith in the ultimate victory of righteousness, and a steady diligence in the reclamation of our kind, can lead to this end. And as we stand by the newly-closed grave of her whose earthly labors are closed at last, let us bethink ourselves that unless we possess in some degree the spirit that actuated her the advancement of the race is needlessly postponed, and the kingdom of evil indefinitely prolonged. Exalted lives exalt whole communities. Everyone may be a factor in the ultimate good of humanity. Seek to live in sympathy with the eternal principles of goodness, and when the time comes to lay this mortal flesh aside the words of the text will be like sweetest music in your ears: “Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these the least of my brethren, ye did it unto me.” -Evening Star, 6/5/1889.
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