While he read to her the office for the sick, she listened with the steady attention of a mind in its full strength. When he came to the words, 'Thou hast been my hope from my youth!'—'Yes!' said she; 'He has indeed been my hope from my youth. He blessed the prayers and the labours of my parents, so that I never remember a time when I could rest in any other trust; yet, till now, I never knew that hope in its full strength and brightness.' Then laying her hand, now chill with the damps of death, upon my arm, she said with great energy, 'Ellen, I trust I can triumphantly appeal to you whether our blessed faith brings not comfort unspeakable;—but how strong, how suitable, how glorious its consolations are, you will never know, till, like me, you are bereft of all others, and, like me, find them sufficient, when all others fail.'
Towards evening her voice became feeble, she breathed with pain, and all her bodily powers seemed to decay. But that which was heaven-born was imperishable. The love of God and man remained unshaken. Complaining that her mind was grown too feeble to form a connected prayer, she bade me repeat to her the triumphant strains in which David exults in the care of the Good Shepherd. When I had ended, 'Yes,' said she; 'He knows how to comfort me in the dark valley, for He has trod it before me;—and what am I that I should die amidst the cares of kind friends, and He amidst the taunts of his enemies! Ellen your mind is entire;—thank Him, thank Him fervently for me, that I am mercifully dealt with.'
As I knelt down to obey her, she laid her hand upon my head as if to bless me. At first, she repeated after me the expressions which pleased her, afterwards single words, then, after a long interval, the name of Him in whom she trusted. When I rose from my knees, her eyes were closed,—the hand which had been lifted in prayer was sunk upon her breast. A smile of triumph lingered on her face. It was the beam of a sun that had set. The saint had entered into rest.
CHAPTER XVIII
——She hath ta'en farewell.——
Upon her hearth the fire is dead,
The smoke in air hath vanished.
The last long lingering look is given;
The shuddering start! the inward groan!
And the pilgrim on her way is gone.
John Wilson.
As I tore myself from the remains of my friend, I felt that I had nothing more to lose. My soul, which had so obstinately clung to the earth, had no longer whereon to fix her hold. Words cannot describe the moment when, having assisted in the last sad office of woman, I was led from the chamber of death to wander through my desolate dwelling. Man cannot utter what I felt when I left the grave of my friend, and turned me to the solitary wilderness again.