It was a terrible time for my poor mother. I felt sure she would be ill when it was all over. She had cried bitterly when little Jude was taken; but after that she seemed as if she could not cry, as if her tears were locked up, and as if she were doing everything she did in her sleep. Indeed, I believe it seemed to her more like an awful dream than a real trouble.
Poor father and mother, they had no heavenly comforter; the Lord was not at that time their Friend and their Saviour! But this very sorrow, which seemed the worst thing which could have happened to us, was to be used by God to bring them to Himself.
One night—I think it was the night after Simon and Thomas had been laid in the grave—we were sitting in Salome's room. She was conscious now, and the fever had quite left her; but she was very weak—so weak that I was afraid to let her talk; so weak that she was as helpless as a little baby. Matthew was much better; he had not had the fever so badly as the others, and he was sitting up in bed.
"There seems nothing to do," said mother that night, as she sat by the fire in her black dress; and for the very first time since little Jude had died she burst into tears.
I knew it would do her good to cry, so I did not stop her, but I laid my head on her shoulder, and we cried together, and my father, who was sitting near Salome's bed, groaned aloud.
We sat in silence for a long time, and we thought Salome was asleep, for she had her eyes shut, but she suddenly opened them, and said:
"Read a bit, please, dear Peter."
I took up her Testament and read aloud:
"The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
"Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.