"Jesus can make a dying bed
Feel soft as downy pillows are."[1]
[Footnote 1: For additional foots about Sarah, see Nestorian Biography, pp. 25-40.]
After Sarah, like Stephen among the early disciples, had led the way into the presence of her Saviour, Blind Martha was the next to follow.
She was constrained by sickness to leave the school early in the spring of 1847, and go home to her parents in Geog Tapa. Though six miles distant, her schoolmates loved to walk out there to comfort her. They prized no recreation so much as the privilege of going to see her. They read and talked with her about her favorite portions of Scripture, prayed with her, and were never allowed to leave without singing "Jerusalem, my happy home." At such times, one of them said, "Her countenance always showed that her spirit was walking the golden streets." When asked about her health, she uniformly replied, "The Lord helps me;" and when urged to speak more particularly, would say, "Dear sisters, the Lord helps me, and that is enough." When, after five or six of them had prayed in succession, she was asked if she was not wearied, she would reply, "I know that I am weak, but prayer never tires me." So great a privilege was it deemed to be with her, that one morning, when a pious member of the Seminary at Seir was called to leave the village early, he said, "I cannot go till I have prayed with Blind Martha, and got from her manna for the road."
Her companions desired very much to be present when she went home; but this was not permitted. One morning in June, she said, at early dawn, "Mother, the day breaks; I think Jesus is coming for me now; let me go." But seeing no change in her appearance, her mother lay down again, and, when next she woke, found that Jesus had come, and taken her to be with him in his home above. What was that vision of the glory of Immanuel that prompted the cry, "Mother, the day breaks!" from one who never remembered to have seen the light? She became blind in infancy. A smile remained on her pale face; and well might the sight of Him who said, "If I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself," leave such a memento of the bliss.
Little Hannah, the youngest member of the school, was suddenly called home the following September, when only eleven years of age. When she first came to Christ, her teacher was awakened one morning by her asking at the bedside, "Is it wrong to wish to die?" "But why do you want to die?" "That I may go and stay with Jesus, and never sin again." This desire never left her. Once she said, with tears, "It seems as if I cannot wait so long to go to my Saviour;" and at another time, "I fear that I have sinned in not being willing to wait till Jesus calls me." Before leaving for vacation, each pupil put up her own things in a bundle, to be laid away till her return. As Hannah was at work on hers, she said to a girl near her, "Perhaps you will open this. I do not think that I ever shall. When you come together in the autumn, I trust that I shall be in the Saviour's school above." So strong was the desire awakened in her by Him who intended soon to gratify it.
While the cholera raged around her in August, she frequently said, "This may be my time to go to my dear Saviour;" and repeated it to her mother on the last morning of her life, but went out as usual to her work in the vineyard. About noon she became unwell, and said to a companion, "I am sick; perhaps I shall die soon." "Are you willing?" "O, yes, I am not afraid to go to Jesus." The disease made rapid progress, and again she said, "I am very sick; I shall die soon: shall we not pray together?" Her young friend led in prayer, and then called on her to follow; but her time for prayer was almost finished. She could just say, "Bless my dear sister; take me gently through the dark river;" when she sunk exhausted, and was carried to the house. A mother bent over an only daughter, and three loving brothers over an only sister; but they could not keep her back from Jesus. She sent for her companions, and they hastened to her bedside. She called for her Testament; but her eyesight was failing her, and she returned it, saying, "I can never use it more; but read it more prayerfully, and love the Saviour more than I have done." She lingered through the night, and rose with the dawn to her long-desired rest in the presence of her Redeemer.
It Is remarkable that three timid girls should have been chosen to lead the advance of a great multitude of Nestorians through the dark valley into the light beyond. No member of the Boy's Seminary died till three years afterwards; and only two others of this before 1858—a period of eleven years; but Infinite Wisdom chose, through such weak and timorous ones, to glorify the power of Christ to bear his people through the last conflict into everlasting rest.