All May Win This Encomium
Bishop F. D. Huntington. Mark 14:8 She has done what she could: she is come beforehand to anoint my body to the burying. This encomium is just as sufficient and adequate for the ablest as the most infirm; it is enough for such as Elizabeth Fry, Hannah More, and Madame Adorna, and no more than enough for the unlettered woman carried out from an obscure lane last week, having died in the joy of her Lord, and her name never seen in printed letters, perhaps, till it was enrolled in the record of the dead. When I read a description of Kaiserswerth, near Dusseldorf, on the Rhine — of that vast establishment of Christian mercy, with its hospital, insane asylum, Magdalen retreat, charity schools, and institutions for training the most scientific nurses and accomplished teachers, graduating superintendents for the humane houses of both Europe and America, and a few miles away another building for the rest and refreshment of those that have been worn down by the fatigues of these voluntary labours of love, — when I see how, throughout, charity has been systematized by skill, and benevolence perfected by perseverance, and then behold the benefits flowing forth to be extended and multiplied, in ever enlarging proportions, over the whole sick and suffering and groaning earth, — I am as much ashamed and humbled before this devoted Pastor Fleidner, whose active spirit and benevolent genius have called up all this busy and organized kingdom of Good Samaritanism about him to glorify the age, as I suppose my sisters are before the beautiful and accomplished baroness who has laid down youth, rank, and wealth as an offering to sorrow and disease; or before the high-born, gifted, and admired English girl (Florence Nightingale) who came to Kaiserswerth as a pupil, and then reproduced the same wonders of consolation and healing for sick and destitute governesses, — not amidst the rural quiet and sweet verdure of her own paternal home in Hampshire, but in a dismal street in London. Yet we ought all to remember that these, too, only did what they could; that, if we do that, God's honours are impartial; that if we do not that, then ours is indeed the shame of the shortcoming. (Bishop F. D. Huntington.) Parallel Verses KJV: She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying. WEB: She has done what she could. She has anointed my body beforehand for the burying.