Her countenance was as sweet a one as was ever seen in death. There was at last neither sigh, groan, or struggle, but all the appearance of a person in the most composed slumber. When I first undrew the curtain, and saw her dear head dropped off the pillow, and looking so sweetly composed, I could not persuade myself the spirit was fled, till I took her in my arms, and found no motion left. I then perceived, the moment she had so much longed for, had arrived; for I think I have heard her some hundreds of times exclaim, with the most vehement desire, “O, my Jesus, when shall I fly to thy arms!” She was always looking and waiting for the happy moment when she should gain the blissful shore, and
“See the Lamb in glory stand,
Encircled with his radiant band,
And join the angelic pow’rs.”
Well,
“All that height of glorious bliss
Her everlasting portion is,
And all that heaven is her’s.”
For the last two years of her life she was remarkably partial to the two following hymns of Mr. Wesley’s; but as the print of the book they were in was small and pale, I wrote them out upon a sheet of paper, which lay in a desk by her side, to the last. These she greatly delighted in, calling them, her sweet hymns. As they are not in our common hymn books, I here insert them.
FIRST HYMN.
And shall I, Lord, the cup decline,
So wisely mixt by Love divine,
And tasted first by thee
The bitter draught thou drankest up,
And but this single, sacred drop,
Hast thou reserved for me.Lord, I receive it at thy hand,
And bear, by thy benign command,
The salutary pain:
With thee to live, I gladly die
And suffer here, above the sky
With my dear Lord to reign.Here only can I shew my love,
By suffering, my obedience prove,
And when thy heaven I share,
I cannot mourn for Jesu’s sake,
I cannot there thy cup partake,
I cannot suffer there.Full gladly, then, for thee I grieve,
The honor of thy cross receive,
And bless the happy load;
Who would not in thy footsteps tread,
Who would not bow with thee his head,
And sympathize with God.
SECOND HYMN.
JESUS! thy Sovereign Name I bless!
Sorrow is joy, and pain is ease,
To those that trust in thee:
All things together work for good,
To me, the purchase of thy blood,
The much-loved sinner, me.With thee, O Christ, on earth I reign,
In all the awful pomp of pain;
But send me piercing eyes,
Th’ eternal things unseen to see,
The crown of life prepared for me,
And glittering in the skies.As sure as now thy cross I bear,
I shall thy heavenly kingdom share,
And take my seat above;
Celestial joy is in this pain,
It tells me, I with thee shall reign,
In everlasting love.The more my sufferings here increase,
The greater is my future bliss;
And thou my griefs dost tell;
They in thy book are noted down,
A jewel added to my crown
Is every pain I feel.So be it, then, if thou ordain,
Crowd all my happy life with pain,
And let me daily die:
I bow, and bless the sacred sign,
And bear the cross, by grace divine,
Which lifts me to the sky.
Having before mentioned the unwearied love and strong attachment she so invariably manifested towards me, I will here insert a short letter or two, which she wrote in different years, but each in the season of bodily affliction, when, to human appearance, death was nigh at hand. The first was occasioned by my expressing a wish, if I died at Madeley, that I might be buried in the same grave with her. After we had been conversing on the subject, I was called away from her, and on my return found on the table, a paper, on which she had written the following words: