‘“You told me it would make me smart,—
The fear of pain was slight;
You have not made me smart at all,—
You’ve made me just a fright!”’
‘July 10.—You will like to know that I have managed almost entirely to get rid of those spots, which made me think of Lady Macbeth, and gave me rather a dislike to the use of caustic; for one does not like to appear as if one never washed either face or hands.’
In November another sorrow came; the death of Miss Tucker’s nephew in Canada, Charles Tucker, whom she had visited before starting for India. He was one of her ‘Robins’ of earlier days; and she felt the loss much.
It was in the course of 1884 that Miss Tucker related to her sister a certain Christian Pandit’s dream. His wife had long been dangerously ill, and the husband had tenderly nursed her. No other Christians lived in the village except these two; and no one but the husband had been near the dying woman for many days.
‘I think it was the day before the sufferer’s departure,’ wrote Miss Tucker, ‘that the Pandit fell asleep; but as he said, “In sleep I was praying.” He dreamt that he heard a voice say, “I will take her; she suffers so much!” Another Voice, which he thinks was a Divine one, said, “Wait!” On waking, the Pandit went to his wife. She told him that Jesus Christ had stood by her, and laid His Hand on her head. “How did you know Him?” asked the husband. “His Side was red!” Whether the appearance was a dream or not, it gave comfort. The sufferer departed at last in peace.’
There is no necessity for any one to believe this, on the part of either husband or wife, to have been more than a natural dream—a reflex of the state of mind and thought previously. At the same time, it is undoubtedly possible that help or comfort, whichever was required, might be sent through the medium of a dream. Several remarkable instances of dreams are mentioned from time to time by Miss Tucker in her letters,—occasionally vivid enough to decide a Muhammadan on the great step of becoming a Christian. There is many a simple and natural means by and through which God speaks to the heart; and dreams may sometimes be one of those means,—especially in ‘Early Church days.’
One other instance of the kind can be mentioned here, while the subject is to the fore. In Charlotte Tucker’s Journal, some few years later, occurs the following singular little entry, when she is describing a visit to a certain village:—