A Tribute to Marian Davis
NP
September 26, 1904
Portions of this manuscript are published in 3SM 93.
When we shall meet again, brethren and sisters, we know not. I should have been at home last week. Marian, my helper, faithful and true as the compass to the pole in her work, is dying. And she wants to see Sister White. But what can I do? I have promised to be at Battle Creek. I came away from Battle Creek after I had given out an appointment. I said, “Let me go to Omaha, and I will come back and stay a week, perhaps two weeks.” They were loth to do it, but they consented. I am leaving tomorrow for Battle Creek. Yet my soul is drawn to the dying girl who has served me for the last twenty-five years. We have stood side by side in the work, and in perfect harmony in that work. And when she would be gathering up the precious jots and tittles that had come in papers and books and present it to me, “Now,” she would say, “there is something wanted. I cannot supply it.” I would look it over, and in one moment I could trace the line right out. 19LtMs, Ms 95, 1904, par. 1
We worked together, just worked together in perfect harmony all the time. She is dying. And it is devotion to the work. She takes the intensity of it as though it were a reality, and we both have entered into it with an intensity to have every paragraph that shall stand in its right place and show its right work. I have about six workers whom I should keep supplied with work, and we have been doing scarcely anything at the work for all this time, nearly half a year. And I want to say, “Pray for Marian. Ask God to help her.” I ask in the night, I ask in the day. I plead with God that He shall help the suffering one. There is nothing that disturbs her more than the thought that she will not see me. O I want to speak to her once more. 19LtMs, Ms 95, 1904, par. 2
She sat right at the table next to me, next to the heat of the stove which she had to have, and I could not have. I moved my place to the foot of the table. She lost all her appetite. She could not eat. And we had to arrange it once more so that she could sit right by me, so that we could be side by side in our work. 19LtMs, Ms 95, 1904, par. 3
I never expect to see many of you, when I leave this place again. It may not be long that I may live, and I am willing to live just as long as God wants me to live, and I am willing to die just when He wants me to die. I want to say, brethren, for Christ’s sake, live to His glory while you do live. It is only a little while. I see quite a number of gray-headed men here, and elderly ladies here, gray-headed women. Now we are getting old, but we do not want to forget that Christ is our Helper. Make Him everything to you. Do not complain, do not fret, do not look on your trials. Every time you talk of them, they magnify. Do not look on your difficulties. Take it alone to God in prayer. 19LtMs, Ms 95, 1904, par. 4