Formidable

Our oldest Church member died recently.  The word most of us could agree well-described her was the word formidable.

You don't get to live to 102 years old without having some determination, and Evelyn had plenty of that.  And then some.  Even at a century old she was still, well, formidable.

Which brings me to Melville Beveridge Cox.

On the face of it he was decidedly not formidable.  He set out as a preacher in New England in 1822 before contracting tuberculosis.  You don't usually live to 100 after having TB.  He gave up preaching .

He moved and began working in a bookstore.  He edited a weekly Christian magazine.  He married.  That might be calculated to turn a sickly man into something a little stronger.  He and Ellen had a baby daughter, but not long after her birth both Ellen and the baby died of cholera.

The weakly widower volunteered for missionary work in South America.  This was refused but instead he was assigned to Liberia, the African state being formed from freed slaves.  There were doubts that this not-at-all formidable man would last long in Africa.

He began as quickly as he could with a church and two mission stations further up the river.  By now he had malaria, and 15 weeks into Africa he was dead.

This story of hopeless weakness is formidable too, however.  His story had so inspired other, stronger people that even as he died five further missionaries were en route to take up and expand his work.

In truth, all human formidability is to be found in God alone.