The Life And Testimony Of Mrs. John Bunyan McCure
John Bunyan McCure, “Life In England And Australia: Reminiscence Of Travels And Voyages Over One Hundred Thousand Miles; Or, Forty Years In The Wilderness; A Memorial Of The Lovingkindness Of The Lord” (1876):
When I first became acquainted with my late dear wife, she was living “without God, and without hope in the world.” The Lord having delivered my soul from death, I was very desirous that He would likewise have mercy upon her: and used to talk with her upon the solemnities of eternity; to which for a time she tuned a deaf ear, until it pleased the Lord to convince her of sin. This greatly encouraged me still to speak to her of the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. Most graciously the Lord blessed my humble endeavours: and she was brought to hope in His mercy—sovereign mercy—through the blood of the Everlasting Covenant. She now attended with me at the house of God, and we were baptized together by the late Mr. John Lucombe, pastor of the Church in Bethel Chapel, City Road. That was a night never to be forgotten by us; we were very specially favoured with the Divine presence, and the answer of a good conscience toward God.
Being fully persuaded in our own minds, and being one spirit in the things of God, determined to become one flesh. On the 29th of March, 1840, we were married at Islington Church.
We lived together amid cloud and sunshine during a period of twenty-nine years, under the command and promise, viz., “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” We always found our dear Covenant God to be unto us, “A God of faithfulness, who has always fed us all our lives long, and redeemed us from evil.”
She was frequently the subject of great exercise of mind respecting her interest in the things of God. Often would she say,—
“’Tis a point I long to know,
Oft it causes anxious thought;
Do I love the Lord or no?
Am I His or am I not?”
And was therefore often cast down while waiting for the assurance of her oneness and blessedness in Christ. She was one of the fondest of mothers who ever discharged the responsibilities of a mother, without any consideration of her own personal comfort; which often caused her to be “A Martha careful and troubled about many things.” But her love and decision for Christ, and truth, and the interest of Zion, never wavered: there she stood firm, and held fast the profession of her faith, without wavering.
When the crisis arrived respecting the chapel in Sydney—which must have been sold but for my mission to England—which I never could have undertaken but for her willingness that I should do so.
She said, “There are two evils, I will choose the lesser of the two; the one is the calamity of the chapel being sold, and the cause of Christ reproached: and the other is my husband going to England, perhaps never to see each other again in this world. I shall therefore choose that he go to England: where I hope he will obtain the means that will save the Lord’s house from being sold.”
While I was engaged in my work in England, preaching and lecturing all over the land—by which means I obtained the amount of the over-due mortgage £1,000—my poor dear wife had much sorrow to endure from those who ought to have comforted and helped her to bear up under the no ordinary trial of being left and separated 16,000 miles from her husband.
Toward the close of the year 1868, she was taken very unwell. Her medical attendant recommended her a change to Victoria, considering the cough she was suffering from proceeded from weakness and anxiety: and that there was nothing the matter with her lungs!!! It was therefore arranged that she should go to Geelong by the steamship Dandenong. For some cause (but evidently under the over-ruling hand of God) the ship did not leave on the day advertised: or she would have arrived in Melbourne a corpse. On the folllowing day, December 17th, just before she was to go on board—while coughing violently— she ruptured a blood-vessel in her lungs. It was twenty-five minutes before the hemorrhage ceased, but it came on again the following day, and continued twenty minutes. Saturday—remained quiet and cheerful all day. Sunday—much worse, bleeding came on worse than ever. The doctor pronounced her case very dangerous: no hope of recovery, her left lung being entirely gone, and only a small piece of the right remaining. During the three following weeks the hemorrhage continued, and then ceased altogether.
All through her illness she was most wonderfully sustained and blessed with the full assurance of faith in Christ. She was now raised up from the dust, high upon the Rock: and there the feet of her faith were established, so that she was never again moved to doubt: but could say,—
“Thou hast whispered Thy forgiveness
In the secret of my soul;
‘Be of good comfort, daughter,
For I have made thee whole.’
The fowler’s snare is broken,
And loosed my captive wing;
And shall the bird be silent
Which Thou hast taught to sing?
In the dust I leave my sackcloth,
As a thing of other days;
For ‘Thou girdest me with gladness,
And Thou girdest me with praise.’
And to that home of glory
Thy blood hath won for me,
In heart and mind ascending,
My spirit follows Thee.”
She now died to everything but Christ: she ceased to be a Martha, and was now a Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus, where there’s no cause for fears. Her soul was full of joy, because of the presence of the Lord, who was her Stronghold and Refuge in the day of her trouble. Those who visited her said they should never forget her happy state of mind.
During the early part of her illness, every morning she inquired as to the state of the weather: if the wind was favourable for the ship Nineveh, the ship by which I was returning. How long it does appear before the ship arrives (it now being over-due).
My last letter she received was read to her, informing her of my success, in which she greatly rejoiced, and said, “Yes, God has honoured the faith He gave him: and I am thankful that I have not made the sacrifice in vain. I have parted with my husband never to see him again. But the Church will not have to part with their place of worship; that will now be secure.” “But,” she added, “he will never be happy when he comes home to find that I am dead and buried. I hope he will not remain in Sydney. Tell him it is my dying wish he should go to England: where he will be able to bring up the two young children as he cannot here.”
When asked if she did not wish to see her husband, she replied, “Oh, very much, but not if it is not the Lord’s will.”
February 22nd.—-The doctor informed my daughter that she could not live till morning, and requested that she be informed.
A very dear friend and brother, Mr. Mills (who had always been kind and attentive to her during my absence, and on whose behalf I shall ever pray God to bless him) was sent for to speak to her upon the solemn subject, that her end had come.
Directly she was informed, she replied, “I am prepared to go any moment. I have but one earthly wish, and that is, that I might see my dear husband once more; but if it is not the Lord’s will, I am resigned: my will is swallowed up in His.”
She then spoke of the two younger children, Lydia and Arthur, then aged eight and ten years, and said, “I hope they will be cared for; they are young to be left without a mother’s care:” and again said that she hoped I would take them to England, where she was sure they would be cared for. She told her eldest and fourth daughters, Jane and Jemima, how she wished her personal effects to be divided among the children, adding, “I am not afraid to die: I am not afraid of death; I shall be with Jesus, which is far better.” She then spoke of her wish in reference to a funeral sermon, saying, “Tell your father that I wish him to preach a sermon in relation to my death from the words that Mr. Mills preached from, and God blessed to my soul: “Jesus answered and said unto him, if a man love Me he will keep My words, and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him.” (John 14:23), and tell him to give out that hymn,
“God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.”
The Lord will strengthen him, and enable him to do it, and to bear up under this—that will be to him—the greatest trial he has ever been called to experience.”
Several times during the night, she said she could hear beautiful music and singing, and was surprised that those who stood by could not hear it also, holding up her hand, saying, “It is coming nearer.”
Tuesday, 23rd, at half-past six o’clock p.m., she said to her daughters, “Take my hands,” which they did, holding them in theirs. She looked on them with a smile, and said, “I shall soon be gone, in five minutes.” Exactly at that time she fell asleep in Jesus, with a sweet smile upon her countenance, which remained enstamped on her face in death. And then the great time-piece of the throne struck twelve! The morning now began! The door was opened wide. She entered in for ever and for ever, to live, and reign and dwell with Christ her glorious Head, in spotless white, a Saviour’s righteousness; in uncreated light, in holiness for ever, free from sorrow and from sin.
“Her ransomed Spirit entered into rest,
Where the wicked cease from troubling
And where the weary are at rest.
She is now for ever at home in glory,
Oh, how the thought delights the soul!
Redeem’d from Satan’s dire control,
And cleansed in Jesu’s blood;
That thus from sin and death made free,
She now with Christ shouts, Victory!
And triumphs in her God.”
I long to depart that I may be there also, where Christ is to be seen without a veil; “And shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.’’
During her illness she desired one of the friends to ask me, on my arrival home, if I had had a presentiment of her illness and death, expressing her own conviction, saying, “Yes, I believe that he has.”
How remarkable! On the 17th of December, the day that she was taken ill, while in the Bay of Biscay, I thus wrote in my Log-Book:—
“Dec. 17th.—The wind and sea are still against us, and have been all night. ‘Be ye reconciled unto God, who hath His way in the whirlwind and in the storm; and the clouds are the dust of His feet.’ I have no doubt that the Lord has a merciful and wise purpose to accomplish by the great and sore trials through which we have been passing now for seventeen days and nights. It may be that we are detained with head tempestuous winds here that we may escape greater dangers elsewhere. Most certainly the Lord is teaching us from day to day our nothingness and our dependence upon Himself, while beholding the majesty and power of God, who sitteth King upon the floods. Whilst writing these lines, the sea is higher than ever; twice it has washed over the poop-deck, and rushed down the companion stairs into the saloon. It is the opinion of many on board that the hurricane which caused the wreck of the London was not of that continued, violent and overwhelming character that we have experienced. But ‘I will sing of Thy power, here I will trust, until these calamities be overpast.’ Everything looks dark and gloomy; yea, very dark, very dark indeed. The question will come up again and again, Shall I ever behold my loved and dear ones again in the land of the living? Oh, how I long to see them once more. Oh, how I have cried and prayed unto the Lord to command the stormy wind, and deliver us. ‘But not my will; Thy will, O Lord, be done.’ ‘Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commit my soul;’ there it is safe to dwell, both for life and death. There, and there only, it is well.”
And then I dreamed my wife was dead, and often while in my cabin, praying unto the Lord on her behalf, that the Lord would stand by her and bless her, it appeared as though some one was saying to me, “she’s dead!” And thus I have often been stopped while praying. On the Lord’s-day before her death I preached from, “Love is strong as death,” and was very much exercised in my mind respecting her. I was indescribably anxious; and while she was dying (though I knew it not) it was my constant prayer to the Lord for her, often exclaiming, as I walked up and down the ship’s deck, “I do hope that it is well with my poor dear wife. Oh, how I do long to see her once more.”
Thus I was somewhat prepared for the solemn tidings that awaited me on my arrival in Sydney, although I hoped for the best, that I should see her dear face once more. But that great favour my ever wise and gracious Lord was pleased to withhold from me. My consolation is that she is taken from the evil to come.
“Yes, she’s gone, not lost, but flown;
Shall I ask thee back, my own?
Back, and leave thy heavenly Father?
Back, to earth and sin? Nay, rather
Would I live in solitude;
I would not ask thee, if I could,
But patient wait the high decree,
That calls my spirit home to thee.”
The following letter was addressed to me by brother Mills, and will, I am sure, be read with interest:—
“My dear Brother,—I feel assured that some particulars relating to your dear wife’s state of mind during her illness, will be interesting to you, and also to others. I believe the Lord’s faithfulness and love was much displayed towards her in the peculiarly trying circumstances in which she was placed. When her illness became serious, in the early part of December, she expressed a wish to see me. When I called, we conversed about the precious things of Christ, and she informed me that she had derived great spiritual profit from a discourse she had heard me preach about two months previously from John 14:23, and part of the twenty-fourth verse, “Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love Me, he will keep My words, and My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him; he that loveth Me not, keepeth not My sayings.” This Scripture was, by the Holy Spirit, made to her a great comfort; and she wished me to mention it to you, dear brother, as she thought it would be suitable for her funeral sermon.
“In her case, love reigned instead of fear so blessedly, that she could speak with the sweetest composure of anything about her departure to her heavenly home; and the dear Lord never suffered her to want the support of His own gracious presence through the whole of her illness. She said, of course, she longed to see you; but the day before her death she said, when informed that her end was very near, “My will is swallowed up in His;” her heart was fixed, trusting in the Lord.
“On the evening of February 23rd she passed peacefully away; and on Thursday she was followed by a large number of sorrowing friends to the house appointed for all living. On the following Lord’s-day, sermons were preached morning and evening, in improvement of the sorrowful event, to large congregations of those who deeply sympathized with your dear bereaved family and yourself. I preached in the morning from Romans 5:21. In the case of our dear sister grace did reign, in giving and sustaining spiritual life, and over her special trials, one of which was giving you up to labour in the Gospel the wide world over. Grace reigned over her natural timidity and over her natural desires, that she looked calmly on death as putting off this tabernacle, and putting on immortality, and to depart was to be with Jesus, which is far better—so much better, that those who loved her most dearly could not wish her back. “Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord.” Mr. G. Shepherd, of New Town, preached in the evening from Genesis 5:24, “And Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him;” the particulars of which I cannot give you, as I was not able to be present.
I am, dear brother, yours affectionately,
John Mills
Mrs. John Bunyan McCure (?-1869) was an English Strict and Particular Baptist believer. She was the wife of John Bunyan McCure, missionaries to Australia. A loving wife and devoted mother, she it was who encouraged her husband to sacrifice all for Christ and to train up her children in the way they should go.
