Never at my lot repine,
Welcome toil, or grief, or pain,
All is well, if Christ is mine.”
When the grace of God thus takes place in the heart, how little does every thing we suffer for his sake appear! How empty is all the world calls good and great, to a soul filled with divine love!
From the following remarkable circumstances, it seems as if she had some apprehensions of the near approach of death. She began to be more abundantly diligent in the use of every means of grace, for some weeks before her last sickness. It was also observed that though she had not been accustomed to pray at the class-meeting, yet being now exceedingly fervent in spirit, one evening at class, she broke out into earnest prayer; she appeared to enjoy much freedom, and great nearness to God, and was deeply affected with a sense of the evil of sin, and her own weakness, which occasioned her crying to God in such expressions as these, “O Lord! Rather let me die, than live to offend, or ever sin against thee!” Indeed the vehement importunity with which she uttered these petitions made her brethren suspect that something more than common would happen; for the power of God was unusually present.
Soon after (on the 14th of January, 1769) she sickened for the small-pox. One then asked her, how she felt her soul: she said, “My evidence is clear, and life or death, the will of the Lord be done.”
*During her illness, she continued perfectly resigned to the will of God. The Thursday after sickening, she became blind, when one of the society coming in, and discerning the distemper [♦]to be dangerous, sat down and wept. As soon as she perceived it, she said, “Dolly! What are you doing? Are you weeping for me? Don’t you know, that if God takes me away, it is from much evil that is in the world? I have often looked at your mother, and thought, O that I was but as near glory as her: (she being about fourscore) but now I think I am nearer glory than she is, and shall be in possession of it before her!”
[♦] duplicate word “to” removed
When she was asked again how she found herself, she answered, “Glory is every moment open to my soul; there is nothing between me and eternal glory, but a few moments more of light affliction.”
At night she called for her father, and said to him, Dear father, you have had many trials and difficulties in the world, and you have many more before you, but fear not, you are in the way, the right way; continue in it, and God will bring you thro’ all.”