Many an adverse wind had she encountered--that weary voyager on life's troubled sea; but Christ had long been her pilot, and now he was about to moor her frail bark into the haven of peace, and the tumultuous waves were hushed, while the loving Saviour whispered, "Peace, be still."
She could converse but little, and was with difficulty understood; but every word breathed of faith and hope. On the afternoon before her death, she repeated these beautiful lines, and, apparently, felt their import:
"Jesus can make a dying bed
Feel soft as downy pillows are,
While on his breast I lean my head,
And breathe my life out sweetly there."
She wished to have her robe and cap prepared so that she might see them before her death. She expressed anxiety for her aged companion, to whom she had been united fifty-five years, and who was dangerously sick at the time, and thought he would never recover; but would soon drop into a deep stupor, occasioned by ossification of the brain.
During the night her feet and hands grew cold, and the worn spirit seemed struggling to depart.
She would frequently arouse from her stupor, and speak a word or two to her attendants, saying to one,
"You did not expect me to be found alone now, did you?"
She repeated, "In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so I would have told you; I go to prepare a place for you."
She lingered till about ten o'clock in the fore-noon, then calling for the absent members of the family, she desired to be raised up. Her son supported her in his arms, the feeble lamp of life flickered a moment in its socket, there was a little struggle, and that pure breast lay free from the care or burden of life. Those loving eyes had looked their last upon her dear children, that stood weeping by her bedside, and the toil worn hands were laid cold and pulseless upon her peaceful bosom, and she was now at rest with her Saviour, "in the house of many mansions." Those dear hands that had been so active, administering to the necessities of her family, had now ceased their labor, and lay inactive, in their marble whiteness.
How many thoughts come surging up, from the wellspring of memory, as we looked upon her in her last repose, and glanced retrospectively upon her useful and exemplary life. Again we heard the rich instruction that had fallen from those pale lips, and a new-purpose sprung up in the heart--a new desire to be more entirely consecrated to God, that our path might be the path of the just, that "grows brighter and brighter to the perfect day."