"How can I thank you sufficiently for so generously responding to my appeal in more senses than one, by sending me money to relieve the pressure of want, books to comfort me in hours of sickness, and wine to cheer and strengthen me?... Should I be spared, I must accept this illness as one of the greatest, indeed the greatest blessing I could possibly receive, for it has taught me my own nothingness, my all insufficiency, and it has drawn me from a sphere of sin into a sphere of grace; it has caused me to despise the world and all its vanities, and has diverted my heart and whole being to Almighty God; it has brought me into close communion with Him, strengthened by the graces of His Holy Sacraments, and has made me feel the blessedness of constant prayer. Oh, I would not change my present state for worlds; and should it please Almighty God to call me from hence, I feel that He will receive me into everlasting peace. Father Crispin called last evening: he considers me so prostrate that he intends administering the sacrament of Extreme Unction. Pray for me! I cannot express to you how rejoiced I am that we are again hand in hand together. You should not forget the days of our youth, we were always inseparable; we were then estranged from each other, and a very, very bitter time that was to me. I cannot say that I am any better."
After the receipt of this letter my sister hurried to Brighton, and she was there when William died. On the 11th of March she wrote to me:—
"We are here to be with William, to wait by his bedside during these last days of his illness. On Thursday night, and again on Friday night, it seemed as if the last hour was come, but there is now a slight, a very slight improvement, so that he may live a few days longer. Yesterday there came over him a momentary wish to recover, but it passed away, and his calm resignation was really unbroken and continues the same to-day. He does not murmur, though his sufferings must be terrible.... From time to time he asks me to read aloud a few lines of the 'Imitation of Christ,' but I can scarcely do it without breaking down as I look up and see those sunken cheeks and large glazed eyes fixed upon me with such a deep look of intense suffering."
Two unexpected friends appeared to cheer William's last days. One was the young Duchess of Sutherland, who had been intimate with him as a child, and having never met him since the days when they both lived in the Maison Valin, heard accidentally of his illness at Brighton; she came repeatedly to see him, and supplied him with many comforts, and even luxuries. The other was the well-known Miss Marsh, the authoress of the "Memorials of Hedley Vicars,"—the staunch Protestant, but liberal Christian. She happened to call to see the landlady of the lodging where he was, when, hearing of William's illness and poverty, she went constantly to visit him, and laying aside in the shadow of death all wish for controversy, read and prayed with him in the common sympathy of their Christian faith and trust. She wrote afterwards:—
"Blessed be God that I have no doubt that the dying friend in whom I have been so deeply interested was in Christ and is now with Him. We never spoke together of Romanism or Protestantism; all I cared for was to persuade him, by the help of the Holy Ghost, to accept at once the offer of a free and present salvation through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and through Him only: and to believe God's word that he that believeth on the Son of God hath everlasting life, because of His one sacrifice once offered for the sins of the whole world. And he did believe it, and false confidences faded away like shadows before the sunrise. 'Jesus only' became all his salvation and all his desire, and he passed into His presence with a radiant smile of joy. I was not with him when he died, but the hour of communing with his spirit that same evening was one of the sweetest I have spent on earth."
My sister has left some notes of that which occurred after William's death:—
"After all was over, and when the room was decorated and the body laid out, Miss Marsh came to see him, and taking his dead hand, she placed a white camellia in it. Then kneeling by the side of the bed, she offered up the most beautiful prayer aloud, in which she described as in a picture our Blessed Lord and the angels receiving his soul. It was quite wonderfully beautiful: there was only one thing she left out; she never mentioned Our Blessed Lady; she placed the angels before our Lady. I was standing at the foot of the bed with a crucifix, and when she ceased praying, I said, 'But you have never spoken of Our Lady: I cannot let Our Lady be passed over.' And Miss Marsh was not angry; no, she only rose from her knees, and coming to me, she threw her arms round my neck and said, 'Do not let us dispute upon this now; we have one God and one Saviour in common, let us rest upon these,' and she came to see me afterwards when I was ill in London.
"'Know thou that courtesy is one of God's own properties, who sendeth His rain and His sunshine upon the just and the unjust out of His great courtesy; and verily Courtesy is the sister of Charity, who banishes hatred and cherishes love.' Were not these the words of the dear S. Francis of Assisi?
"During William's illness Miss Marsh came every day with something for him, and quite stripped her own room to give him her own chair, and even her mattress. She was just the one person William wanted. Any dried-up person might have driven him back, but she was daily praying by his side, handsome, enthusiastic, dwelling only on the love of God, and she helped him on till he began really to think the love of God the only thing worth living for.
"'O sister,' he said to me once, 'if it should please God that I should live, all my life would be given up to Him.'