A little later on we get a glimpse of this busy worker in another sphere.  She had gone to Mildmay Park for rest.

“68, Mildmay Park, October, 1877.

“I was going away on Saturday, but caught cold at the quarterly meeting of the Association of Female Workers, ... so I resigned myself to an extra week here; and verily, they do know how to nurse, and what’s more (!) how to keep you quiet.  Also, they do know how to pray!  I have learned a little, I hope, on that subject this last week.  What I hear and see here is quite a new light on intercessory prayer.  I thought I knew something of its power and reality, but I see I did not know much.

“Mrs. Pennefather took me (before my cold) to Clapton House.  I only wish every girl I care for was there; such a beautiful Christian school.  I got any amount of bright looks (as it seems they knew my books), and I wanted exceedingly to go among them.  Hearing the Principal say she would be prevented taking their Bible class, I ventured the proposal to take it.  Afterwards, I had about a dozen all to myself in the drawing-room for a talk with any that wanted special help.  They were told to get chairs.  ‘Oh!’ I said, ’don’t sit all in a row a long way off; come up close and cosy; we can talk ever so much better then, can’t we?’ You should have seen how charmed they were, and clustered niece-fashion all round me.  We did have such a sweet hour; it was rather after the ‘question-drawer’ manner; but all their little questions and difficulties seemed summed up by one of them, ’we do so want to come closer to Jesus.’”

As a help to her reading of the Bible, Frances R. Havergal joined the “Christian Progress Scripture Reading Union,” conducted by her friend Rev. Ernest Boys, for whose magazine she acted, on one occasion, as editor during his absence.  An amusing letter details her difficulties as editor, and she came out of them having formed this conclusion, “Never, except as an act of sheer mercy and pity, will I be an editor.”  This Reading Union was a great help to her own spiritual life, and also to her dealing with others, as the following sentences in a letter to the writer bears witness.  “Not long ago I got five of my elder sister’s servants to join, all Christians, but easy-going ones, and the result astonished me!  It led to quite a revival of their spiritual life, and to reading together and speaking together, and to others; and I have since had a most beautiful letter from them full of gratitude for the great blessing which God had given them through joining. Anything to get people to read His Word!  I find it continual help in corresponding with or meeting those who have joined, and any to whom God has let me be spiritually helpful are invariably delighted at the idea of reading with me.  It is training many young Christians into regular reading.”