"I have been so happy this winter, going about to beg old clothing for the unfortunate freedmen in Florida. I have sent off several barrels of clothes already. Alas! there is no Christ to multiply the garments, and what are those I send among so many? I think of these destitute ones night and day, and feel so glad to help them even a little."
This happiness in helping others was the secret of Sarah Grimké's unvarying contentment, and there was always some one needing the help she was so ready to give, some one whose trials made her feel, she says, ashamed to think of her own. But the infirmities of old age were creeping upon her, and though her mental faculties remained as bright as ever, she began to complain of her eyes and her hearing. In August, 1872, she writes to a friend:—
"My strength is failing. I cannot do a tithe of the walking I used to do, and am really almost good for nothing. But I don't know but I may learn to enjoy doing nothing; and if it is needful, I shall be thankful, as that has always appeared to me a great trial."
Notwithstanding this representation, however, she was seldom idle a moment. She was an untiring knitter, and made quite a traffic of the tidies, cushion-covers, and other fancy articles she knitted and netted. These were purchased by her friends, and the proceeds given to the poor. Soon after she had penned the above quoted paragraph, too, she copied for the Rev. Henry Giles, the once successful Unitarian preacher, a lecture of sixty-five pages, from which he hoped to make some money. His eyesight had failed, and his means were too narrow to permit of his paying a copyist. She also managed to keep up more or less, as her strength permitted, her usual visits to the poor and afflicted; and during the hot summer of 1872 she and Angelina went daily to read to an old, bed-ridden lady, who was dying of cancer, and living almost alone. During the following winter Sarah's strength continued to fail, and she had several fainting spells, of which, however, she was kept in ignorance. But as life's pulse beat less vigorously, her heart seemed to grow warmer, and her interest in all that concerned her friends rather to increase than to lessen. She still wrote occasional short letters, and enjoyed nothing so much as those she received, especially from young correspondents. In January, 1873, she writes to an old friend:—
"Yes, dear.... I esteem it a very choice blessing that, as the outer man decays, the heart seems enlarged in charity, and more and more drawn towards those I love. Oh, this love! it is as subtle as the fragrance of the flower, an indefinable essence pervading the soul. My eyesight and my hearing are both in a weakly condition; but I trust, as the material senses fail, the interior perception of the divine may be opened to a clearer knowledge of God, and that I may read the glorious book of nature with a more heavenly light, and apprehend with clearer insight the majesty and divinity and capabilities of my own being."
A few months later, she writes: "My days of active usefulness are over; but there is a passive work to be done, far harder than actual work,—namely, to exercise patience and study humble resignation to the will of God, whatever that may be. Thanks be to Him, I have not yet felt like complaining; nay, verily, the song of my heart is, Who so blest as I? In years gone by, I used to rejoice as every year sped its course and brought me nearer to the grave. But now, though the grave has no terrors for me, and death looks like a pleasant transition to another and a better condition, I am content to wait the Father's own time for my removal. I rejoice that my ideal is still in advance of my actual, though I can only look for realization in another life. I know of a truth that my immortal spirit must progress; not into a state of perfect happiness,—that would have no attractions for me; there must be deficiencies in my heaven, to leave room for progression. A realm of unqualified rest were a stagnant pool of being, and the circle of absolute perfection a waveless calm, the abstract cipher of indolence. But I believe I shall be gifted with higher faculties, greater powers, and therefore be capable of higher aspirations, better achievements, and a nobler appreciation of God and His works."
The sweet tranquillity expressed in this letter, and which was the greatest blessing that could have been given to Sarah Grimké's last years, grew day by day, and shed its benign influence on all about her. She had long ceased to look back, and had long been satisfied that though she had had an ample share of sorrows and perplexities, her life had passed, after all, with more of good than evil in it, more of enjoyment than sorrow. Her experience had been rich and varied; and, while she could see, in the past, sins committed, errors of judgment, idiosyncracies to which she had too readily yielded, she felt that all had been blest to her in enlarging her knowledge of herself, in widening her sphere of usefulness, and uniting her more closely to Him who had always been her guide, and whose promises sustained and blessed her, and crowned her latter days with joy supreme.
[ CHAPTER XVIII. ]
Sarah Grimké had always enjoyed such good health, and was so unaccustomed to even small ailments, that when a slight attack came in the beginning of August, 1873, in the shape of a fainting-fit in the night, she did not understand what it meant. For two or three years she had had an occasional attack of the same kind, but was never before conscious of it, and as she had frequently expressed a desire to be alone when she died, to have no human presence between her and her God, she thought, as the faintness came over her, that this desire was about to be gratified. But not so: she returned to consciousness, somewhat to her disappointment, and seemed to quite recover her health in a few days. The weather, however, was extremely warm, and she felt its prostrating effects. On the 27th of August another fainting-spell came over her, also in the night, and she felt so unwell on coming out of it that she was obliged to call assistance. For several weeks she was very ill, and scarcely a hope of her recovery was entertained; but again she rallied and tried to mingle with the family as usual, though feeling very weak. Writing to Sarah Douglass of this illness, she says:—