But let me not forget the quiet sufferer, who, with such calm composure, has all this time been lying in unbroken silence. Her days are almost numbered. Consumption, that fell destroyer of human hopes, has long been gnawing at her heart-strings. The cord of life is worn almost to its last thread. Her hollow cheek, her wasted form, her sunken, death-glazed eye, all tell me that the cold, clammy hand of Death is gradually chilling her life-blood. She breathes with difficulty, for her lungs are too far gone to perform their functions. Now and then a hacking cough seems as if it would rend her frail chest to pieces. In her feeble hand she holds a fan, with which she is endeavoring to cool her burning brow. Its faint fluttering is but the counterpart of the almost fainter fluttering of life, as it hovers round her heart.
I sat for several moments quietly gazing on the wan and wasted features of the poor sufferer, before I could summon the resolution to say a word. I finally broke the solemn silence which filled the desolate chamber, by telling her that I sympathized very deeply with her in the suffering through which she had to pass.
I then asked her, if God should see fit to call her away from earth, did she think she was prepared for so awful a change. She feebly whispered “Yes.”
“What is then to become of your unprotected children?”
“God will take care of them.”
“Do you think it right that you should suffer so much, while others are in the enjoyment of countless blessings?”
“Perfectly.”
“Shall I read a portion of God’s Word, and pray with you?”
“If you please, sir.”
She reached her arm under the pillow and drew forth a Bible. Oh! how precious a thing it is, in the hour of death, to pillow one’s weary head on the precious promises of that blessed Book!