God has placed us in a network of rela­tionships. He uses these relationships to work his grace in us – with the help of other people we are drawn to him, come to believe in him, and are sanctified by him. He does us good through other Christians; and in turn he does good to others through us. The network includes many kinds of relationship – we have mothers and fathers; we have all manner of other relatives; we have friends, we have employers, classmates, colleagues, fellow church members, teachers, sup­pliers, customers and neighbours. All of these relationships present an opportu­nity to say a word to someone about Christ. Some Christians, in the history of the church, have been particularly effective in their use of these oppor­tunities. Let me introduce you to one such woman.

Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, lived in England in the eighteenth century. She was born into aristocratic society, and married an earl. Thus, she was near the top of the social hierarchy, and moved easily in the highest circles. She was a fine Christian woman, but I can hear you asking –what’s her relevance to us, in our more ordinary circumstances? The stand-out feature of Selina’s life is the creative way she took opportunities to help everyone in her path. She used her influence well; and that is the connec­tion between her life and ours.

Selina’s childhood was not a very happy one – her parents separated when she was only six years old, and she grew up without her mother. However, her own marriage was very happy indeed. The affectionate letters between her and her husband Theophilus are proof of this. Neither of them grew up in be­lieving homes, but in her early 30s she was greatly attracted when her sisters-in-law, responding to the preaching and friendship of the early Methodists, came to believe. For some time she had been seriously convicted of sin – the kinds of things, like failing to keep her word, that we might take lightly but which grieved her deeply. The advice she got from her fashionable friends failed to satisfy her. In the summer of 1739, after a stay with her sisters-in-law, Selina came to trust in Christ with full understanding that he had died for her sins. She was overjoyed – all her anxieties were gone. She and Theophilus began to study the Scriptures eagerly, and spent helpful time with evangelical preachers.

At this point Selina was the mother of five young children, and expecting a sixth. As the wife of a large landowner, she took an active role in the manage­ment of several large houses. She was responsible for the oversight of a huge staff. For years she had taken this seri­ously as a weighty trust, and had tried to do good by distributing Bibles and prayer books to the people on the earl’s estate. But now, converted and with a much clearer spiritual purpose, she began to use her considerable energies to serve the cause of Christ among those she supervised.

For a long time Selina had been wearied, and discouraged, by the emptiness of high society – with its focus on the frivolous and material, and its supercilious attitude to evangelical religion. She mixed freely among such people, and now she began to turn this opportunity to spiritual good. It had become a great pleasure for her, when in London, to attend worship and hear the newly-converted John and Charles Wesley preach. So she invited her titled friends to join her. Of course she was rebuffed at times: the Duchess of Buckingham found the teaching of the Methodist preachers “repulsive ... It is monstrous to be told that you have a heart as sinful as the common wretches that crawl on the earth. This highly offensive and insulting...” But she did agree to go, nevertheless. It is sobering to realise that shortly after writing this, the Duchess died.

After George Whitefield’s return from America, he became one of her closest friends, helping her reach a much more biblical understanding of salvation and sanctification. He was especially important after she suffered the greatest per­sonal blow of her life: when Selina was 39, and the mother of four children (two had already died), Theophilus died sud­denly of a stroke at the age of 50. For the rest of her life she grieved for him.

But Selina was an activist by nature, full of schemes for useful work – and within six months she was busy looking for opportunities to do spiritual good for others. In fact, as she wrote to minister Philip Doddridge, “I dread slack hands in the vineyard.” With Whitefield now one of her personal chaplains, she filled her house with politicians, aristocrats, actors and writers to hear him speak. As White­field wrote at this time: “Last Sunday evening I preached to a most brilliant assembly indeed. They expressed great approbation and some, I think, begin to feel. Good Lady Huntingdon is indeed a mother in Israel. She is all in a flame for Jesus.”¹ Those thereby converted, such as Lady Fanny Shirley, also invited Whitefield into their homes to preach to friends. Other converts included Lady Chesterfield, wife of a dissolute lord; and two sisters, Mrs Carteret and Mrs Caven­dish, who had married into leading noble families. A man of great influence and a future Colonial Secretary and President of the Board of Trade, Lord Dartmouth, also came to believe as a result of these occasions at Selina’s home. Overall, Selina’s influence was great. Despite the probability that the number of the nobility who came to put their trust in Christ may not have been large, her example in embracing the gospel and living it out faithfully was important for the future.

Her biographer, Faith Cook, comments that,

the evangelical revival of the eighteenth century might never have gained the acceptance that it did apart from the endeavours of the Countess of Huntingdon ... The Countess used her unquestionable influence in the highest circles of the land and even in the royal court to throw the cloak of her protec­tion over the prominent preachers of the day and over the fledgling Methodist movement itself.” Furthermore, “by this means Christian doctrine with its result­ing standards of morality influenced the mindset of a people well into the Vic­torian era and beyond.²

Selina was a great encourager of the young Church of England preachers asso­ciated with the Methodist movement. As they set out all over England and Wales, taking the gospel to the poor and for­gotten in isolated places, she prayed for them and wrote innumerable letters to them. She took a great interest in their work, and did all she could to persuade bishops to ordain evangelical men so that the new believers would have faithful pastors to build them up in the truth. As the years passed, there came to be a shortage of clergy for the preaching posts she had helped establish. Selina applied her organising skills and finan­cial resources to activate a solution that had been formulating in the minds of her ministerial friends. She established a college for training ministers in Trevec­ca, Wales, which opened in 1764. For the rest of Selena’s long life it was the project perhaps nearest her heart.

Over the years the churches she en­couraged, and helped support through her giving, formed an informal kind of fellowship known as “The Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion”. She was able to build chapels for many of them, in places the Church of England would not, and this she was able to do through the protection guaranteed by the Toleration Act of 1689. Thus they were outside the Anglican communion. All her life the Countess had been devoted to the Church of England and never intended to encourage the founding of a new denomination. However, in her later years she was virtually forced out of her church because of her involvement in a chapel she had begun in east London; support of her chaplain there meant she had to depart.

Some suggest her imperiousness played a part in this outcome. Certain­ly she was a woman who expected to get her way. As a busy, organising ac­tivist with social rank she could tend to be rather a bulldozer. Like many such women, she could be bossy. But never­theless she was kind, and would do all within her considerable power to help a friend, especially a harassed clergy­man, in genuine need. At the end of her long life (she died at 84) she was greatly mourned. As one who had known her well, faults and all, said at her death:

Thousands, I may say tens of thousands, in various parts of the kingdom heard the gospel through her instrumentality that in all probability would never have heard it at all; and I believe through eternity will have cause to bless God that she ever existed. She was truly and emphatically a Mother in Israel, and though she was far from a perfect character, yet I hesi­tate not to say that among the illustri­ous and noble of the country she has not her equal.³

There is no doubt that Selina was an extraordinary woman; and that God gave her opportunities to do good on a wider stage than many of us would believe ourselves to occupy. Yet her stewardship of these opportunities is full of application for us if we look closely. If we think in terms of authority, there are people whom we can influence for good. If you are a mother, there are always your children – your example, and your instruction, are possibly the greatest single influence in their lives. Use it with all your strength. Perhaps you are an employer – and especially if you employ some unbelievers (hope­fully, you do) – there will be many ways your staff will see and hear you acting as a Christian – or not. Let them see your concern for their souls, by speak­ing with them. Selina was unabashed in doing so. Once, she was warning a tradesman about the need to repent and make peace with God. He seemed to pay little attention – but years later, she heard that another workman had over­heard the conversation, leading to his own conversion. Then there was her enormous correspondence. She encour­aged, exhorted and gave spiritual counsel many thousands of times through her letters. Can you write a letter, a card, an email – or even a well-constructed text message?

Selina was always generous with her material resources – and lived relatively simply herself. For instance, she made sure that the students at the Trevecca College had decent clothes to wear, often providing respectable suits to wear for preaching. Small – and large – kindness­es were her trademark, and she went to some trouble to learn who had a need and what it was. This took effort, discre­tion and creative imagination at times. What forms does our kindness take? Are we inclined to give the leftovers, things we don’t want – or do we take trouble to find out just what someone needs, and go to some trouble to give them exactly what would suit that need? Are we imaginative in our generosity, or do we have a charity-bin approach?

Selina also took genuine interest in all the projects she had helped initiate. The College received far more than just her money. She visited often, and even had a little set of rooms built for her to stay in while she enjoyed fellowship with the students and enquired about their spiritual progress. She often went with them on trips around Wales to hear them preach. This is a good principle. We’d do well to do more than contrib­ute some money to support a mission­ary. Why not commit ourselves to write to that missionary at least once a month, say? Other Christians crave more than our money. Our interest, our prayers, our letters, our visits, are even more important.

Selina was famous for her tireless energy. She was a whirlwind of activity, engaged in a multiplicity of projects, and keeping up with a very great number of people. She became very much the go-to person for anyone – especially clergy – who were in need of help. But she only became that person because she was so willing to help. One would assume, especially since she lived to such an advanced age, that she had a robust constitution. But in fact she was fre­quently ill, especially after busy periods. Somehow, though, she managed to keep her correspondence going – and over time she made close friends of various young women who lived with her and eased the burden of some of her regular work. Doing so, she discipled them as well. That is the way God often uses us!

Make Selina one of your own cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1); and follow her example with kindness and vigour. Take note of her faults; but thank God for the fruits of the Spirit so evident in this good and faithful servant of Christ.