"Yes, I know it. I might have lost you. That would have been a more overwhelming one. I wish to be resigned—it is my constant prayer—and I hope that I do not cherish any murmuring disposition, but I cannot help feeling; yet I fear lest I should indulge my mourning to an excess."
"Excess of grief, my dear, is to be guarded against, as it unhinges the mind, induces a melancholy cast of temper, and dispossesses comforts which are still preserved, of their power to interest and delight. Mourn you may, but you must not mourn as one 'who has no hope.' For hope, even the sweetest hope that can lodge in the human heart, is yours. Death has merely separated you for a season, he has not destroyed your union. You now live apart, but no impassable gulf lies between you—only a narrow grave. Let your mourning, therefore, be moderate and submissive."
"Yes," Mrs. Stevens replied, as her countenance began to assume its former cheerfulness, which had vanished from the moment the first intelligence of her sister's illness was received, "my sister lives—she lives a purer and a happier life than I ever expect to live, till I cease to breathe this vital air—she now sees the King in his beauty—she now unites with all the redeemed in singing, 'Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood.' She is, and ever will be with the Lord. These words comfort me."
"Then let me hear the words which comfort you," said Mr. Lewellin, who caught this latter sentence as he entered the parlour, "as they may serve to comfort me. My heart never throbbed as it has done since I lost my mother—a loss I have been anticipating for years, but I now find that it is more desolating than I ever anticipated."
"It is an event," said Mr. Stevens, "which has brought along with it many alleviating circumstances. She died in peace. No dubious uncertainty distracted her, no dread forebodings appalled her, no torturing anxieties for those she loved agitated her breast. Hers was an enviable death."
"Yes," said Mr. Lewellin, "her sun did not go down till the evening; and even then it was light. She told me that for several days before her last illness she suffered great mental perplexity and horror, that she not only doubted her personal piety, but the truth of revelation. She was driven almost to a state of despair; and on the Sabbath morning, when she left her cottage for the house of prayer, she resolved not to receive the memorials of the Saviour's death. The text from which the Rev. Mr. Bates preached, was taken from Judges viii. 4, 'Faint, yet pursuing.' There was one paragraph in the sermon which gave her sweet relief. It was to this effect: 'The most favoured servants of the Lord are liable to momentary seasons of suspicion and depression; and some have been left for days, and some for months, not only without consolation, but even without hope. But shall we say that as soon as they lose their enjoyments they make a shipwreck of their faith? Shall we say that the design of God—the practical efficacy of the atonement—the continual indwelling of the Holy Spirit—depend on the ever fluctuating and ever varying temperament and feelings of the mind, which is sometimes so perplexed and distracted by unknown causes, as to be incapable of believing its own faith, or deriving felicity from its own sources of blessedness? Oh! no. There are periods in the mysterious life of an heir of salvation when he is left without comfort, if not without hope, and then comes on the hour and the power of darkness; but this singular dispensation does not disinherit him, or leave him an orphan, in a state of privation and abandonment; neither does it destroy the vitality of his religious principles, but it is intended to let him feel a portion of that misery which he deserves, but from which he is delivered through the blood of the Lamb.'"
"Had my sister left us under this mental gloom, I should have had no doubt," said Mrs. Stevens, "of her present happiness; but it would have been an additional cause of grief."
"Sometimes," I observed, "it pleases God to leave his most eminent servants without any strong consolation in their last hours; and sometimes he elevates them to a participation of the felicity of heaven, before he permits them to enter. Hence there is no undeviating uniformity in his procedure; but yet he keeps our practical good in view by all the dispensations of his will. When I see a holy man overwhelmed with sorrow on the eve of his departure, I am convinced there is no absolute, no meritorious connection between an exemplary life and a triumphant death. This conviction, coming through such a medium, destroys all self-complacency, and impels me to place all my dependence for salvation on Jesus Christ. But when I see a sinner of like passions and infirmities with myself—one who has wept over defects and transgressions similar to my own—rising above fear, eagerly and yet submissively anticipating his own dissolution, giving utterance to thoughts and feelings more nearly allied to the glory and purity of the heavenly state than to the dark obscurity of the present, I feel a degree of gratitude to the Saviour for making manifest life and immortality, which, for its full expression, I must wait till I see him as he is, and am made like unto him."
"The death of our friends," said Mr. Stevens, "is always an afflictive event, but it is sometimes a salutary one. It reminds us of our mortality, and brings before our imagination the unseen realities of an eternal world. It teaches us what shadows we are, and what shadows we are pursuing:—
'Our dying friends come o'er us like a cloud,
To damp our brainless ardours; and abate
That glare of life, which often blinds the wise.
Our dying friends are pioneers, to smooth
Our rugged pass to death; to break those bars
Of terror and abhorrence nature throws
'Cross our obstructed way; and thus to make
Welcome, as safe, our port from ev'ry storm.'"