13.01.1870

Unspecified work for Leve/Levi Louis Rushton, brother of William Forsyth’s second wife Delilah Lucy Rushton, ‘Butler’ to father James Rushton, Farmer, of Lower Cotton, Staffordshire. Death of both mother Elizabeth Rushton nee Warrington and sister Elizabeth Rushton in 1869.

“In one of the hymns, ‘Flowers for the Altar,’ we have a description of some of the features of the neighbourhood. It contained the following lines: Jacob shall bring his lilac and Lucy her thyme, To deck Our Lady’s Altar. I sometimes wondered whether Jacob and Lucy were fancy names or whether they referred to real children. By a happy chance I found out.

Among the families received into the Church by Father Faber were the Rushtons. One of the family—Lilah—had married a man named Forsyth and was living in Worcester. She happened to pay a visit to Cotton to see one of her brothers, who was ill. It was an opportunity to enquire whether she remembered Father Faber. “I ought to,” she said, “as he put me in one of his hymns.” The story she told was both interesting and pretty. The name she bore before the family was received into the Church had been Delilah; but Father Faber, she said, would have nothing to do with Delilah, who betrayed Samson, and baptised her Lucy. He had told the children to bring flowers for Our Lady’s altar during the month of May (1847). Lucy gathered a bunch of thyme from the garden, and just as she reached the door of the temporary chapel she met a boy named Jacob Radcliffe carrying a bunch of lilac. Jacob, boy-like, made fun of her thyme; and she, girllike, retorted that “it was as good as his besom of lilac.” They heard a laugh, and, looking up, they saw Father Faber leaning out of the window of his room. The hymn appeared shortly afterwards.”

– The Tablet, 14.10.1933 page 6