Mrs. Penn-Lewis: A Memoir: Foreword to the Second Edition

This the the Foreword to the Second Edition of Mrs. Penn-Lewis: A Memoir by Mary N. Garrard

When I received the invitation to write a foreword to the new edition of the life of Mrs. Penn-Lewis I responded very gladly, for much blessing had come to my own heart through reading a previous edition. Hardly had my letter been posted, however, before I regretted what seemed to be a presumptuous action; for I greatly feared, and the fear is now strong within me, that I should fail in the proper discharge of my task. A foreword, I imagine, is designed to attract the attention and hold the interest of the reader to whom the contents of the book are unknown, in the hope that the reader will be encouraged to press forward through all the pages. Lest therefore I may fail in my task, let me at least say that a blessing direct from God awaits every reader who gives prayerful and serious thought to what is now presented.

As a Christian, Mrs. Penn-Lewis sought hard after God’s best. She was not content to be saved; she was eager to enter into heavenly experience. She believed the blessing was a reality, that is to say, not an emotion of the being but an action of God upon herself. She had faith to receive it and she was prepared for any price to the flesh involved in the priceless blessing of release to her spirit. Upon that experience, not as an end in itself, but as an essential equipment for the fulfillment of the purpose of God, her whole life turned. No doubt specific characteristics that make up our varying personalities will exercise their influence in the receiving of the blessing. We need not suppose, therefore, that we are to experience precisely that to which Mrs. Penn-Lewis bears testimony; but we must surely believe that God has his own precious blessing for us, a blessing that sets us free for the doing of his will and becomes the opening of the door into fellowship that is heavenly indeed.

It has been said that she had a tendency to trust other folk too much. That, I think, must have been a weakness of the heart, for these pages bear witness to her powers of insight. Certainly in matters of truth she was endowed with a fine penetrating insight that not only exposed the wrong but with unerring judgment of the spirit provided the remedy.

It is twenty years since she died and the world has changed. We are in the era of vast organizations methodically engaged in the suppression of the significance of the individual. That, however, is not the divine intention or even permission. Here is a woman, weak in body, enriched and equipped of the Spirit, bearing aloft the word of truth whose life surged in her slender frame. May we not fervently pray as we draw near to the close of the fifth decade of this century that God will be mercifully pleased to raise up men and women of like spirit who know their God, who are filled with the Spirit, and are sure of the purpose of God in his Son.

Theo. M. Bamber
15th March, 1947