In early youth she had been accustomed, in the daily family prayers, to read in turn her verse of the Lessons and the Psalms. In later years she always read them to herself or had them read aloud to her. During her illness she scarcely ever failed to hear them; and the evening Psalms ended her day. She knew very many of the Psalms by heart, and "specially delighted in the glorious ascriptions of praise and thanksgiving in those for the thirtieth evening of the month." She liked to think that every month and every year at its close was accompanied by praise and thanksgiving. "It pleased and touched her greatly," writes her sister N., "that in the New Lectionary the miracle of restoring sight to the two blind men at Jericho, came as the second lesson for the evening of her birthday, 7th August.
"One of her most favourite verses in the Psalms was, 'Thou hast given me the defence of thy salvation. Thy right hand also shall hold me up, and thy loving correction shall make me great.'"
Two poems from the Lyra Germanica gave her constant comfort, and were in her heart and on her lips. She found in them the embodiment of her faith, and could use them not only as expressing her own feelings, but as bringing comfort and help, because they were the utterance of the ardent faith and devotion of others.
These two hymns really open to us the inner life of Bessie Gilbert. They show from whence she derived the strength and courage that supported her in the efforts and trials of her early life, and they reveal the source of the patient endurance of fifteen years of isolation and suffering.
Passion Week.[9]
I.
In the Garden.
Whene'er again thou sinkest,
My heart, beneath thy load,
Or from the battle shrinkest,