I'll bid farewell to every fear,
And wipe my weeping eyes.
"Should earth against my soul engage—"
Here weakness prevented him, and he whispered to his wife,
"You finish it."
He slept a good deal, but seemed always conscious of his wife's presence, frequently putting up his restless hand to touch her face, and remind himself, in his blindness, of her loved features. When he talked, it was of his unfinished work, his conviction of the justice of the cause in which he fell, his anxieties for his wife, left alone in a cruel world, and of his enemies and murderers always forgivingly, as if they knew not what they did. At different times, too, he spoke of the riot, relating facts and incidents as I have set them down.
It afflicted him much to leave his wife penniless. He had had a little money in his pocket when he came to the Convention, but that, with the gold studs in his bosom, had been plundered by some of the ruffians who took part in mutilating his person.
Thus he lingered until the sixth day after his injury. When the morning of Sunday, the 5th of August, came, he remembered that he had an appointment to exchange pulpits with a colored brother in the city, and said,
"Emma, we must send word to Bro. Miles that I can't come. I don't feel quite well enough to preach."
As time went on, his mind began to wander, and he fancied himself in his own pulpit. He invoked the Divine blessing, he gave out a hymn and sung, wounded and suffering as he was; his wife, who wept as she thought of the melody of his own fine voice, joining him at his request, half choked by her tears. Then he prayed with her, sung again, and preached, taking for his text, "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." After these exercises, he expressed his wish to close with the Lord's Supper, and immediately began the beautiful ceremony. His wife, anxious to gratify him, skilfully aided with such meagre conveniences as were at hand, to carry out his touching fancy. He partook with her what seemed to him the symbolic bread and wine.