Edith Babcock’s Passing

Edith Knoll Babcock was a gentle woman of culture and refinement who loved everything beautiful from the flowers that flourished in her yard to the mountains that towered above her in her youth. Her spirit had captured much of that beauty through the years and had reflected it into the lives of the members of her family and of a countless host of friends.

I feel that no eulogy that I might compose would add any new dimensions to her life and I would feel inadequate to try to find the words that would properly honor her memory. So, knowing that Mrs. Babcock loved poetry and particularly the Psalms, I turned to this source to try to express my personal esteem for her and perhaps, in a way, the message she would want me to bring to you on this occasion.

I was amazed at how many of the Psalms seemed to fit, it was not a matter of searching for something appropriate, but of selecting, the most fitting passages and in that perhaps I have failed. But first of all, I think Mrs. Babcock would have liked this to be a service of worship. As she has worshipped so many times in this sanctuary, let us now turn our thoughts Godward: “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is thy name in all the earth!” Psalm 8 Then I think Mrs. Babcock would want every one of you to ask himself a very serious question: “O Lord, who shall sojourn in thy tent? Who shall dwell on thy holy hill?” Psalm 8

And the Psalmist answered: “He who walks blamelessly and does what is right, and speaks truth from his heart, who does not slander with his tongue, nor takes up a reproach against his neighbor; but who honors those who love the Lord, who swears to his own hurt and does not change. He who does these things shall never be moved.” Psalm 15

Mrs. Babcock not only loved beauty, but she recognized God as the source of all that is beautiful, as did the Psalmist David: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the rivers…Lift up your heads , you gates, and be lifted up you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this king of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory.” Psalm 24

Mrs. Babcock lived in the confidence expressed in the 34th Psalm: “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers them…Young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing……When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the broken-hearted and saves the crushed in spirit…none of those who take refuge in him shall be condemned.”

Few people were more faithful in their attendance at the services of worship than Mrs. Babcock. She could say as the Psalmist said: “These things I remember as I pour out my soul: How I went with the throng and led them in procession to the house of God. With glad songs and shouts of thanksgiving, a multitude at worship.” Psalm 42

If she could give her testimony, Mrs. Babcock might do so in the words of the 66th Psalm: “Come and hear, all who fear God, and I will tell you what he has done for me. I cried aloud to him, and he was extolled with my tongue. If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But truly God has listened, he has given heed to the voice of my prayer.”

When circumstances prevented Mrs. Babcock from attending the services of her church, she might well have shared the feeling of the 84th Psalm:

“How lovely is they dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yea faints, for the courts of the Lord; My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. Lord of hosts, blessed is the man who trusts in thee!”

In her advanced years, I am sure Mrs. Babcock read with increased appreciation the 90th Psalm: “Lord, thou has been our dwelling place in all generations, before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting thou art God.

So, teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. Let they work be manifest to thy servants and thy glorious power to their child. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us and establish thou the work of our hands upon us, yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.”

I think anyone who has lived among mountains and then moves to the plains, misses the grandeur of high mountains. Mrs. Babcock probably knew the 121st Psalm from memory: “I will lift up my eyes to the hills, from when does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.”

If there is one particular message that Mrs. Babcock would have with you, her family and friends, I think it might be these words: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Be still and know that I am God, I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth! The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.” Psalm 46

The Bible tells how a great general (Barak), before he went to fight with Sisera ‘with his chariots and his multitude’, cried out to the woman who bade him go to battle, “If thou wilt go with me, then I will go.” And Deborah answered, “I will surely go with thee.”

I think that must have been what Orville and Edith said to each other nearly 67 years ago, and they have fought the battle together ever since.
“…he alone is great who by a life heroic conquers fate.”