June 13

How Fleeting Is My Life

Show me, O Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life.

You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man’s life is but a breath.

Man is a mere phantom as he goes to and fro: He bustles about, but only in vain, he heaps up wealth, not knowing who will get it.

But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you.

Psalm 39:4-7

Elizabeth Freeman embarked on her missionary adventure to India in 1851, after a short engagement and only five weeks of marriage to John Freeman, a twelve-year veteran missionary with the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions. She knew full well the risks that were ahead of her. Her husband’s first wife, Mary Ann, had died on the mission field, leaving two little children behind.

Elizabeth found it difficult to acclimate herself to the rigors of life in India, but she was convinced of her call. To her niece who was yearning for missionary adventure, she wrote, “Let me tell you, my dear girl, unless you should come with your heart filled with love to God and these poor perishing heathens, you would be sadly disappointed.” But she did not end her advice with that warning: “I hope you will be a missionary wherever your lot is cast, and as long as God spares your life; for it makes but little difference after all where we spend these few fleeting years, if they are only spent for the glory of God. Be assured there is nothing else worth living for!”

When she wrote those words she was fully aware of the fleeting nature of missionary life, but she could not know that her own days and the days of her loved ones would pass as quickly as they did. The missionaries were aware of Indian opposition to their presence, but were not prepared for the violence that erupted in 1858. Word reached them that four companies of a nearby military regiment mutinied and murdered many English citizens in the area.

The Freemans and their colleagues quickly realized they were stranded: “On Saturday,” Elizabeth wrote, “we drove to the station, found all the ladies in tears, and their husbands pale and trembling. We all consulted together . . . but what could we do? Every place seemed as unsafe as this.”

A week later, on June 2, 1858, Elizabeth wrote that she had gone to bed the previous night with “a violent sick headache,” after hearing “two regiments from Lucknow had mutinied, and were on their way here.” It was her last letter, and her final words were poignant: “Can only say good-bye, pray for us, will write next mail if we live; if not you will hear from some other source. Your affectionate sister, E. Freeman.”

There would be another week of terror before the ordeal ended: “On the 13th of June, at seven o’clock in the morning, they were released, marched to the parade-ground, and ruthlessly shot,” according to one author, “Their death was agonizing, but not long delayed.” Elizabeth had spent less than seven fleeting years in India, but they were “spent for the glory of God.” ¹³