She evidently found in the mighty God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, an inexhaustible source of strength and comfort and consolation through her child-like trust in the immutable promise, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee."
Conformity to the character of Christ was an essential element in her every-day life. She had cares, difficulties, and trials, but she cast them all upon the great burden-bearer, hence prevailing prayer was ever her chief delight. It is no misplaced and extravagant exaggeration to say that she breathed the very atmosphere of prayer. This is the wisest resource at all times. Like Elijah on the summit of Mount Carmel, where all is peaceful and solitary, alone with God, she made her requests known unto Him. It was then that the peace of God which passeth all understanding, kept her heart and mind through Christ Jesus.—Phil. iv. 6-7.
Oh, who can fully estimate the excellency of a devotional temperament? What evils we are delivered from! What mercies we receive! What gladness of heart! What light is imparted! What strength God bestows! For, has He not promised, "Ask, and ye shall receive?" She had no doubts concerning the faithfulness of her Father to answer prayer. It was through her importunate pleadings at the throne of grace that her only son, when quite young, was led to see his need of Jesus. And what joy was brought into the hearts of those parents when, at the return of the father from the prayer-meeting, they found their child on his knees crying for God to have mercy on his soul. Over such scenes as this the holy angels delight to bend their bright wings and make joyous music in heaven. (See Luke xv. 10.)
On one occasion during the fratricidal war in this country, when her boy was fighting before Richmond, some one brought her word that he was mortally wounded on the battle-field, for they had seen his name in the newspapers, she calmly and trustfully replied: "Not my son; for I have made him the subject of earnest prayer, that his young life may be guarded by God while in his country's battles for continued liberty and independence." She recognized the truth that piety and patriotism are inseparably connected.
She seemed to realize that the Saviour was always at her side. She walked by faith and not by sight. She understood the distinction between the constituents of faith and the consequences of faith. Chalmers wisely remarks—that the gratitude, the love, the disposition toward new obedience; these are not the ingredients of faith; they are but the effects of it. Observe what follows by making them the ingredients. By faith we are said to be justified; but if our piety toward God, or our desire to conform to His law, or any moral characteristic whatever, shall be regarded as parts and constituents of this faith; then, under the consciousness of our sad deficiency, we shall never attain to the solid peace of one who rejoices in a firm sense of his acceptance with God. But reduce faith to its simplicity, take it in the obvious and uncompounded sense which you attach to the mere act of believing, regard it as purely giving credit to God's testimony, when he sets forth Christ as a propitiation for our sin, and invites one and all in the world to cast upon Him the burden of their reliance, and then see how, by immediate transition, one might enter into peace, and become a confiding, tranquillized, and happy creature, simply because convinced that the most powerful of beings, whom he aforetime regarded as an enemy and an avenger is pacified toward him, and now makes him a free proffer of fellowship and forgiveness. It is of the greatest importance to the secure and perfect establishment of a believer's peace, that it should be a matter of believing, and believing only. It is also an imperative necessity that the comfort and confidence should spring from the proper object of belief, which is the sureness of God's own testimony, and not from the consciousness of love or gratitude, or any moral quality in ourselves!
I heard Dr. Andrew Bonar, while preaching in Philadelphia, during a visit to this country, tell about a dying elder who was asked by friends who clustered around his couch, "How do you feel, now that the hour of your departure has come, and you hear the voice that calls you home? Have you still joy and peace?"
"Oh," he said, "I am not thinking about joy or peace, or my feelings. I am not thinking about myself at all. I am just lying here thinking about Christ. I am thinking about what He has done and suffered for me; and what He is doing for me in heaven. Yes, He is 'a hiding place from the wind.'
"'Rock of ages cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee.'
"That is what we have to do in life and in death. Where can we find rest and refuge in a dying hour, but by thinking upon and trusting in Him who is 'the shadow of a great rock in a weary land?'"