She liked to repeat the alternate verses of the Psalms, when the others were read to her; and to the good things laid up in her mind she owed much of the consolation that strengthened her in hours of trial. After one night of great suffering, in which she had been repeating George Herbert's poem, "The Pulley," she said that the last verse had helped her to realize what the hidden good might be which underlaid her pain—
Let him be rich and weary; that, at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to My breast.
During the earlier part of her illness, when every one expected that she would recover, she found it difficult to submit to the unaccountable sufferings which her highly-strung temperament felt so keenly; but after this special night of physical and mental darkness, it seemed as if light had broken upon her through the clouds, for she said she had, as it were, looked her pain and weariness in the face, and seen they were sent for some purpose—and now that she had done so, we should find that she would be "more patient than before." We were told to take a sheet of paper, and write out a calendar for a week with the text above, "In patience possess ye your souls." Then as each day went by we were to strike it through with a pencil; this we did, hoping that the passing days were leading her nearer to recovery, and not knowing that each was in reality "a day's march nearer home."
For the text of another week she had "Be strong and of a good courage," as the words had been said by a kind friend to cheer her just before undergoing the trial of an operation. Later still, when nights of suffering were added to days of pain, she chose—"The day is Thine, the night also is Thine."
Of what may be termed external spiritual privileges she did not have many, but she derived much comfort from an unexpected visitor. During nine years previously she had known the Rev. Edward Thring as a correspondent, but they had not met face to face, though they had tried on several occasions to do so. Now, when their chances of meeting were nearly gone, he came and gave great consolation by his unravelling of the mystery of suffering, and its sanctifying power; as also by his interpretation that the life which we are meant to lead under the dispensation of the Spirit who has been given for our guidance into Truth, is one which does not take us out of the world, but keeps us from its evil, enabling us to lead a heavenly existence on earth, and so to span over the chasm which divides us from heaven.
Perhaps some of us may wonder that Julie should need lessons of encouragement and comfort who was so apt a teacher herself; but however ready she may always have been to hope for others, she was thoroughly humble-minded about herself. On one day near the end, when she had received some letter of warm praise about her writings, a friend said in joke, "I wonder your head is not turned by such things"; and Julie replied: "I don't think praise really hurts me, because, when I read my own writings over again they often seem to me such 'bosh'; and then, too, you know I lead such a useless life, and there is so little I can do, it is a great pleasure to know I may have done some good."
It pleased her to get a letter from Sir Evelyn Wood, written from the Soudan, telling how he had cried over Lætus; and she was almost more gratified to get an anonymous expression from "One of the Oldest Natives of the Town of Aldershot" of his "warm and grateful sense of the charm of her delightful references to a district much loved of its children, and the emotion he felt in recognizing his birthplace so tenderly alluded to." Julie certainly set no value on her own actual MSS., for she almost invariably used them up when they were returned from the printers, by writing on the empty sides, and destroying them after they had thus done double duty. She was quite amused by a relation who begged for the sheets of "Jackanapes," and so rescued them from the flames!
On the 11th of May an increase of suffering made it necessary that my sister should undergo another operation, as the one chance of prolonging her life. This ordeal she faced with undaunted courage, thanking God that she was able to take chloroform easily, and only praying He would end her sufferings speedily, as He thought best, since she feared her physical ability to bear them patiently was nearly worn out.
Her prayer was answered, when two days later, free from pain, she entered into rest. On the 16th of May she was buried in her parish churchyard of Trull, near Taunton, in a grave literally lined with moss and flowers;—so many floral wreaths and crosses were sent from all parts of England, that when the grave was filled up they entirely covered it, not a speck of soil could be seen; her first sleep in mother earth was beneath a coverlet of fragrant white blossoms. No resting-place than this could be more fitting for her. The church is deeply interesting from its antiquity, and its fine oak-screen and seats, said to be carved by monks of Glastonbury, whilst the churchyard is an idyllically peaceful one, containing several yew-trees; under one of these, which over-shadows Julie's grave, the remains of the parish stocks are to be seen—a quaint mixture of objects, that recalls some of her own close blendings of humour and pathos into one scene. Here, "for a space, the tired body lies with feet towards the dawn," but I must hope and believe that the active soul, now it is delivered from the burden of the flesh, has realized that Gordon's anticipations were right when he wrote: "The future world must be much more amusing, more enticing, more to be desired, than this world,—putting aside its absence of sorrow and sin. The future world has been somehow painted to our minds as a place of continuous praise, and, though we may not say it, yet we cannot help feeling that, if thus, it would prove monotonous. It cannot be thus. It must be a life of activity, for happiness is dependent on activity: death is cessation of movement; life is all movement."
If Archbishop Trench, too, was right in saying;