This is what Alice herself said about it: "I used to be afraid of death; but God has taken it all away. I cannot understand people calling it 'being in danger.' Once my sins seemed to me as a mountain-pile, but they have all been laid on Jesus, and His blood is peace. It is all done for me. I have nothing to do but to keep clinging to Jesus till I see Him."

I wonder, when she spoke of having had all her sins laid on Jesus, whether
Alice was thinking of that verse which says, "All we, like sheep, have gone
astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on
Him the iniquity of us all."

How well it was for her that she had learnt to know her Saviour before the time of illness came; for she was then so weak and so very, very tired that she could not think much; but only, as she said, "keep clinging to Him." And as she grew weaker and weaker, I am sure the Good Shepherd taught her that even if she could not cling to Him—and it was no longer "the weak clinging to the Strong, but the Strong clinging to the weak"—she was safe, for He has said of His sheep, "I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father, which gave them Me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand. I and My Father are one."

Alice had near her bed, where she could always see it, a beautiful picture of a shepherd with a lamb upon his bosom. She was very fond of looking at it, and saying how it made her think of herself. "If you see a flock of sheep going along the road, and one of them is very weary," she said—one day when she was very tired, and her feet were very hot, so that she felt as if they would never be cool again—"you would not like to see them go on driving it, but would wish to see the shepherd take it in his arms to the fold." She asked that these works, "My Beloved is mine, and I am His," should be put upon her gravestone, saying that it was her favourite text; and against her name in the family Bible she wished them to write,… "so He bringeth them unto their desired haven."

When she was almost Home, her father spoke to Alice about the many she had to love on earth, and the many in heaven; for two little sisters, Constance and Eva, were already with the Lord. Looking up with a smile, as if she really saw the One who had been her Friend in life, and from whose love death could not separate her, she said softly, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee?"

I think these were her last words; a little before, she had said, "It seems strange to be going where you can none of you come with me; but He is there, and that is enough."

If you are like the rest of my young friends, you do not mind having the Spider's history interrupted, that we might think of this sweet story of Alice, and how she too "tried the ropes," and found them "all right." But there was one great difference, was there not? The spider's ropes are spun out of his own body; they are twisted so strongly and firmly by his own feet; but Alice knew that if she was to be safe in life and in death, nothing of her own was strong enough to hold by; she could be saved only because the Lord Jesus Christ had finished the work which God gave to Him to do. It was because Alice knew Whom she had believed that she could say she had tried the ropes and found them all right; she knew they would bear any strain, and so she could answer that question about being afraid, and reply that she had no fear whatever.

I want just here to copy for you some beautiful lines, written by one who "fell asleep in Jesus" when he was quite young, not yet sixteen; they were found in his pocket-book.

"Oh! I have been at the brink of the grave,
And stood on the edge of its dark, deep wave;
And I thought, in the still calm hours of night,
Of those regions where all is for ever bright;
And I feared not the wave
Of the gloomy grave,
For I knew that Jehovah was mighty to save.

"I have watched the solemn ebb and flow,
Of life's tide which was fleeting sure though slow;
I've stood on the shore of eternity,
And heard the deep roar of its rushing sea;
Yet I feared not the wave
Of the gloomy grave,
For I knew that Jehovah was mighty to save.