“I will do what I can; but I am old to change my ways, and I do not understand young girls. No one can take your place; you talk of impossibilities. O Geraldine! Geraldine! it is too hard to be thus left, old and stricken, and alone. Why must it be?—you so many, many years younger than I. I never thought to be the one left behind. I cannot be resigned. I cannot be willing to let you go. The Almighty is dealing very bitterly with me!”
“Dear husband, the parting will be the shorter that you are well stricken in years,” she answered gently, answering him according to the measure of his understanding and feeling. “It will be but a few short years before we meet again in the place where there is no parting. And now, my husband, before I am taken away from you—before this new strength, which, I believe, God has given me for a purpose, be spent—I have a few things to say to you—a few charges to give to you. Will you let me speak from my very heart, and forgive me if in any sort I pain and grieve you?”
“You pain or grieve me by any precious words you may speak! That thing is impossible. Let me know all that is in your tender, noble heart. It shall be the aim and object of the miserable residue of my days to carry out whatever you may speak.”
The Duchess pressed his hand affectionately, and lay still for a moment, gathering strength. Her husband gave her some of the cordial which stood at hand, and presently she spoke again—
“My husband, we are living in troubled and anxious days. The world around us is full of striving and upheaval. You and I remember those awful struggles in France now dying out of men’s minds, and we have indications, only too plainly written on the face of the earth, that the spirit of lawlessness and anarchy thus let loose is seething and fermenting throughout the world.”
The Duke bent his head in assent. He well knew such to be the case, but hardly expected that to be the subject of his dying wife’s meditations. She continued speaking with pauses in between.
“My husband, perhaps you know that ever since those terrible days, when men began to see in that awful Revolution the first outpouring of God’s last judgments upon the earth, godly men and women of every shade of opinion have been earnestly and constantly praying for God’s guidance and Spirit, that they may read the signs of the times aright, and learn what are His purposes towards mankind, as revealed in His written Word. I will not speak too particularly of all that has been given in answer to this generation of prayer; but it is enough for me to tell you that Light has come, that the long-neglected prophetic writings have been illumined by the light of God’s Spirit to many holy men and women, who have made them their study day by day and year by year, and that rays of light from above have come to us, illumining the darkness, and showing us faintly, yet clearly, God’s guiding hand in these days of darkness and trouble. Do you follow me so far?”
“I understand your words, and am ready to believe that in these things you have a knowledge that I cannot attain unto; but what then?”
“What I would ask of you, my husband, is patience and trust—patience with many things that will seem strange to you, that will seem like a subversion of all your ideas of wisdom and prudence—and trust in God’s power to make all things work together for good, and to bring good out of evil. We know that the latter days are coming fast upon us—that the armies of good and evil are gathering for that last tremendous struggle which precedes the reign of the Lord. We know that the strange upheavals we see in the world about us are the beginnings of these things, and that those who would be found faithful must learn to discern between the evil and the good; for Satan can transform himself into an angel of light, and deceive, if it were possible, the very elect, whilst God has again and again chosen the weak and despised things of this world to confound the strong; and it is human nature to turn away in scorn from all such weak things, and look for strength and salvation from the mighty and approved.”
The Duke listened with a sigh. He understood but little of all this. Yet every word from his dying wife was precious, and engraved itself upon his memory in indelible characters.