This was an effort towards observing the second table of the law, in doing which she was actuated likewise by that principle which flows from keeping the first table also. Nor was the friendship of Dr. and Mrs. Graham misplaced. The seeds of gratitude were sown in an upright heart. Dr. H——, from year to year, manifested his sense of obligation, by remitting to the widow such sums of money as he could afford. This was a reciprocity of kind offices, equally honorable to the benefactors and to them who received the benefit: an instance, alas, too rarely met with in a selfish world.
It may here be remarked, in order to show how much temporal supplies are under the direction of a special providence, that Dr. H——'s remittances and friendly letters were occasionally received by Mrs. Graham until the year 1795; after this period her circumstances were so favorably altered as to render such aid unnecessary; and from that time she heard no more from Dr. H——, neither could she learn what was his subsequent history.
It may be profitable here to look at Mrs. Graham, contrasted with those around her whose condition in the world was prosperous. Many persons then in Antigua were busy and successful in the accumulation of wealth, to the exclusion of every thought tending to holiness, to God, and to heaven. The portion which they desired they possessed. What then? They are since gone to another world. The magic of the words, "my property," "an independent fortune," has been dispelled; and that for which they
toiled, and in which they gloried, has since passed into a hundred hands; the illusion is vanished, and unless they made their peace with God through the blood of the cross, they left this world, and alas, found no heaven before them. But amidst apparent affliction and outward distress, God was preparing the heart of this widow, by the discipline of his covenant, for future usefulness — to be a blessing, probably to thousands of her race, and to enter finally on that "rest which remaineth for the people of God."
Her temporal support was not, in her esteem, "an independent fortune," but a life of dependence on the care of her heavenly Father: she had more delight in suffering and doing his will, than in all riches. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will show them his covenant." To those who walk with God, he will show the way in which they should go, and their experience will assure them that he directs their paths. "Bread shall be given them, and their water shall be sure." She passed through many trials of a temporal nature, but she was comforted of her God through them all; and at last was put in possession of an eternal treasure in heaven, "where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal." May this contrast be solemnly examined, and the example of this child of God made a blessing to many.
In anticipation of her approaching trial, with which her own life might be suddenly terminated, Mrs. Graham set her house in order, and wrote the two following letters: one to her friend Mrs. Grandidier, to whom and her husband Capt. Grandidier, she committed the charge of her family and affairs; the other
to her father in Scotland, commending her children to his protection. Her tender and affectionate appeals to each of them in respect to their own eternal welfare, are a beautiful specimen of that Christian fidelity and love of the souls of men which so strongly characterized her future life.
"ST. JOHNS, Antigua, 1774.
"MY DEAR MRS. GRANDIDIER — The long and steady friendship which has subsisted between us, in sickness and in health, in prosperity and adversity, ever the same, without change or diminution, leaves me no room to doubt that it will extend to my little family, and that you will be as ready, to the utmost of your power, to befriend them, as you have been to the dear father already gone, and your friend, who is, perhaps, about to follow.
"If it should please God to take me away in my approaching confinement, I leave you and Capt. Grandidier full power to dispose of every thing in this house, and belonging to me in this island, as you shall think most for the advantage of my little family. You know my extreme tenderness for their dear father made me unable to part with any of his clothes, but these can be of no consequence to me when I shall again have joined him for whose sake I kept them; you may therefore dispose of them, and also of my own, if you think the avails will be of more service to the children. But I do not choose to leave any particular directions about my trifling effects; you will consult with other friends, and I am certain you will act for them to the best of your judgment. It is a great relief to my mind that I have such steady and tried friends to leave the charge of them upon. Miss