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To Edith Sophia Jacob
Elderfield, Otterbourne, Winchester.
July 21st [1881]

MS Charlotte Mitchell

My dear Edith

I suppose you want the cutting down process to be done in time for October, as you speak of three numbers.  If it is for September tell me how soon it is wanted.  The MS did not come with your letter, and if not posted, might return by Mrs Collins on Saturday, unless you would cut down the first chapter yourself, which would be a great kindness as I have my hands full, having a little book on ’how to teach the New Testament[‘]1 to finish for the National Society, and the Christian Names to correct for a new edition.2

Leave out, if you like the Wounds, but I never doubted that ‘they also which pierced Him’3 referred to one way in which they shall be looked at and ‘the Lamb as It had been slain’4  to the way He shewed Himself to St John.

With what rapture

Gaze we on those Glorious scars5

I think it is and has been a universal belief in the Church, that we shall see them made radiant and glorified, I suppose, nay, I am certain;  but still there

Surely, the feeling we have for a veteran’s scarred brow shews in a measure the reverence we have for the ‘dear tokens of His Passion’6 and I should think the Resurrection Body would have its beauty unchanged by them looking at it not materially.  What the Likeness consists in even St John did not know – but may it not be somehow in expression reflected from His Countenance – as in some measure people do get beautiful as they grow older & better.  I always think that beautiful countenance of the freshly departed is to shew how they will bear the image of the Heavenly.  I should think it would end in the Church Americans taking to the Holy Cross and the Dissenters to the Shut ins – the which has an odd sound to me.

I have often heard of that good lady and had occasional correspondence with her.  I rather dread her as having a considerable flow of ink to the pen, but she is intensely good.  I feel foolish for I saw a charming extract which I thought of sending you, but I was so silly as not to mark it, and now I can’t remember where it was!  I am sorry the Bp of Bedford6 cannot come

 

your affectionate

CMYonge

 

1 How to Teach the New Testament (London: National Society 1881).

2 The new edition of A History of Christian Names was published in 1884.

3 Revelation 1: 7: 'Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him.'

4 Revelation 5: 6: 'And I beheld, and lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns, and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent forth into all the earth'.

5 Charles Wesley, 'Lo, He comes with clouds descending', ll. 16-17.

6 Ibid. l.13.

7The Rt. Rev. Dr William Walsham How (1823-1897), suffragan bishop of East London, who held the title Bishop of Bedford after his appointment in 1879. He was one of the patrons of the Society of Watchers and Workers.
Cite this letter


The Letters of Charlotte Mary Yonge(1823-1901) edited by Charlotte Mitchell, Ellen Jordan and Helen Schinske.

URL to this Letter is: https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/yonge/20002/to-edith-sophia-jacob-23

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