Such a radiant light, such ineffable peace rested on her face when she lay back in silence on her pillow, that the writer thought "so will she look when at last her eyes are open to the eternal day." A kiss, a pressure of the hand, a word of farewell, and there was no other place of meeting in this life.
Undaunted by suffering and privation, patient, heroic, she lived and died. No murmur escaped her lips from early youth to age. She stood trembling with awestruck face when, after she had said, "Oh how I should like to see the sun!" her companion solemnly assured her, "And you shall see," and turned the sightless face towards the glowing sky. All was dark, the young girl could only answer, "I see nothing," as she turned and went slowly homewards. She accepted her blindness. It was the will of God. No word of lamentation escaped her throughout her life.
Again there came a time when a great cause had been entrusted to her, when she felt that it was prospering in her hands, when she hoped to raise the whole condition of the blind, to lift them up out of poverty and dependence, and place them on a level with all industrious and intelligent citizens. But a hand was laid upon her in the darkness. "I can do nothing," she said; and once again she turned and went slowly without a murmur, without repining, down the dark pathway to the grave and gate of death. But the work for which she gave her life has not died, and cannot die. Every good seed, sown upon good ground, must spring up and bear fruit. Her patient efforts, her success in "removing obstacles from before the feet of the blind," will help and encourage other workers. Blind children in our schools, blind workmen and workwomen in our shops and factories, will reap the harvest for which Bessie Gilbert laboured, and may join in the acknowledgment of dependence upon the Great Father which she so loved to utter: "All thy works praise thee, O Lord."