“Miss Willard wants to open the lines between your soul and mine. She feels sure we can do each other good, and asks me to tell you about my Ray who went home three years ago, because you, too, have lost a daughter and will understand. My Ray died after five days’ sickness. As soon as she was taken ill, I began, as my custom is, to say, ‘Thy will be done.’ I said it over and over constantly, and permitted no other thought to enter my mind. I hid myself and my child in the fortress of God’s blessed will,—and there I met my sorrow and loss. When she went out of my earthly life the peace of God which passes all understanding came down upon me from above, and enwrapped me in an impregnable hiding-place, where I have been hidden ever since. My windows look out only on the unseen and divine side of things; and I see my child in the presence of God, at rest forever, free from all earth’s trials. Whatever may be your experience I know that grief is bitter anguish under any other conditions than these, and the mystery of it is crushing.
“Our blessed Frances gave me your letter to read, and I could echo every word you said about her. She is queen among women and is doing a glorious work, not the least of which is the emancipation of women—coming out on every side. They have far more than they know for which to thank Frances Willard.”
To that letter I replied: “If the Heavenly Father takes note of the sparrow’s fall, it may be that He put the thought in Miss Willard’s mind to ask you to help me; but, dear lady, you are many a day’s journey ahead of me in religious experience when, in the presence of the death of your beloved, you can say, ‘Thy will be done.’ I wish I could, like you, will whatever God wills.
“I thank you for the account of your Ray, and I thank God that He created such a Christian mother. Simeon said to Mary: ‘Yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also.’ Every one who has lost a child has been pierced through and through. In this crisis of my life I am amazed and stupefied by my own capacity for suffering, and actually look upon myself with an awed pity, as I would upon a stranger. How can I yield everything? I had already buried one lovely daughter in the bloom of life; and I had only one left. I submit because I must. My heart cries out for my child; God forgive me, but I would call her back to me if I could.”
When the time drew near for the annual convention of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, my husband and sons urged that I should go to Detroit, hoping the change of scene and new responsibilities might arouse me from depression. Miss Willard had already written: “My heart turns toward thee in thy desolation. Remember thou hast doting sisters. I believe thy beautiful Clara knows how we rally to thy side, and is glad.”
While I was in Detroit, Hannah Whitehall Smith called upon me several times, and talked about my condition of mind, and so inspired me with gratitude that I endeavored to obey every suggestion she made, regardless of the pride and self-sufficiency which is so common with unsatisfied souls. She seemed to have direct access to the Heavenly Father, and laid my case before Him with such simplicity and faith that my heart was deeply touched, and I gained a new knowledge of spiritual relations. When I learned in these latter days, that she had been called to sorrow over her husband “gone before,” I wrote to her in loving memory of her former goodness, and received a reply, from Eastnor Castle, where she and Lady Henry Somerset had been engaged in preparing a memorial of Miss Willard, which was issued to the people of Great Britain.
The letter reads: “Your loving sympathy in my last great loss has been most welcome. My dear husband had been a great sufferer for eighteen months, and longed so eagerly to go that no one who loved him could be anything but thankful when his release came. I have been enabled to rejoice in his joy of having entered into the presence of the King. It cannot be long for me at the longest before I shall join him, and until then I am hidden in the Divine fortress of God’s love and care. I love to think that you too are hidden there, dear friend and sister, and that together we may meet in the Divine Presence where there is fulness of joy even in the midst of earthly sorrow.
“Lady Henry joins me in love to you. She is, as we are, very sorry over the loss of our beloved Frances Willard; but God still lives and reigns, and in Him we can rest without anxiety. I have found Him a very present help in many a time of trouble, and I rejoice to know I was permitted to help you realize this in your hour of sore need.”