"I suppose you have heard that I have again very nearly slipped over the brink of the great river. O, the unutterable illness and distress of body, but none of mind, dear cousins. My will was lost in the Divine Will; I felt that His will was the best to be done,-I could rest in it; besides if I were to go then, the promise felt very sure that Jesus would be my companion, and take me to a habitation prepared for me by Himself. Was not this gracious? I know you will not think I am boasting; you know something of the oft exceeding poverty of soul I have experienced, and of my utter nothingness; so I may the more extol the grace." Her feeble health and tender heart received a severe shock in the autumn of 1873, in the unexpected death of a dear son-in-law, and in entering with deep sympathy into the bereaved condition of her daughter. She seeks to comfort her, with the comfort wherewith she herself had been comforted of God in her own widowhood. “I am glad that I am left to keep very close to my darling's side in tender, loving sympathy. 'So He giveth His beloved sleep '—and now, as a dear friend said on a similar occasion, let us all be very still.' In this stillness, wondrous things are seen and felt. Oh! those everlasting arms! Mayst thou continue to feel them bearing thee up! May He, the Husband of the widow, keep at thy side; for He loves the children of men, His lambs and sheep. He will surely bring thee to a blessed re-union in the everlasting habitations; and may the angels who are near keep watch and ward." On the night of the 25th of 3rd mo., 1874, she suffered very severely from utter prostration, and it seemed as if the last hour were arrived. She rallied however in a few hours, and the intense suffering of that night was never repeated; but during the week which followed many mercies were granted; all fears were removed for ever, and a full and precious sense of perfect participation in the inheritance of eternal life, "purchased for her," as she so often said, "by her great Redeemer," was her happy portion. The night of the 29th was a sleepless one, but without pain. In it she seemed to have given her a foretaste of her heavenly inheritance. In speaking to her children, she said: "I seemed to be taken an immeasurable distance from you (not that I loved you the less), and to be floating down the river of death. A new sense seemed given me of oneness with Christ and God, described in the words, 'I in them and Thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one.' The breakers were all behind me;-before me there was not a ripple on the shore; how strange that I feared death!" On the last morning of her life, a beloved cousin was admitted to her bedside; to whom she spoke for some time of the precious experience then granted her,— calmly and in her natural voice,—though often pausing for breath. The following memorandum, penned at the time, gives some account of this interview. "After kissing me she said, 'I wanted to tell thee that I have not needed thee, nor indeed any outward help (referring to a physical fear of dying expressed some months before,) the fear of death is so entirely taken away, and I seem to have passed over into what I can hardly tell. It is not rapture, neither do peace nor joy nor rest alone express it. It is just perfect-perfect-perfect-' Then as if taking a glance backward over her life, she acknowledged how much Divine support she had been favoured with, amid occasional outward trials and darkness. Now there is nothing but a sense of unutterable love-all love-such oneness-so entire, that it seems like living the 17th chapter of John. Again, referring to the sustaining and comforting sense of Divine love, she cradled her arms, saying, ' He is carrying me like this, dear.'" After this visit she sent messages of love, encouragement, or advice to different beloved ones, and evidently had more such remembrances on her mind, if time and strength had permitted their expression. Thus for a few hours, her heart full of love to God and man, she hovered on the verge of the new existence into which she was so gently ushered,-and, conscious and collected to the very last, with most of her children around her, quietly fell asleep on the afternoon of Fourth day, the 2nd of 4th month, 1874. Thornhill, Knock, near Belfast. An Elder. |