There was a storm outside on that New Year’s night; there was a storm within her soul. She felt all the agony of life and death coming to a crisis.
“Anguish!” she sighed, “anguish!”
But the anguish gave way, and peace came, and she whispered softly: “The love of Christ—the best love—the peace of God—the everlasting light!”
Yes, that was what she would have written in her book, and perhaps much else as beautiful and wonderful. Who knows? Only one thing we know, that books are forgotten, but such a life as hers never is.
The old prophetess’s eyes closed and she sank into visions.
Her body struggled with death, but she did not know it. Her family sat weeping about her deathbed, but she did not see them. Her spirit had begun its flight.
Dreams became reality to her and reality dreams. Now she stood, as she had already seen herself in the visions of her youth, waiting at the gates of heaven with innumerable hosts of the dead round about her. And heaven opened. He, the only one, the Saviour, stood in its open gates. And his infinite love woke in the waiting spirits and in her a longing to fly to his embrace, and their longing lifted them and her, and they floated as if on wings upwards, upwards.
The next day there was mourning in the land; mourning in wide parts of the earth.
Fredrika Bremer was dead.