"She grew better as the spring advanced; the influence of religious principle moderated the violence of her mental anguish; her spirits regained their natural vivacity; she resumed her customary habits of going about doing good, and again mingled amongst the living; but now her preference was to the excellent of the earth, who love and fear God. So great was the change in her appearance, that we all flattered ourselves that the fatal disease had received a check, and that she would yet live to bless us with her presence and her example. But the disorder, which we thought subdued, was silently spreading itself through her whole frame; and having taken a fresh cold, it attacked her with greater violence, and within the space of three weeks she was taken from us. At my last interview with her, which was only a few hours before her decease, she said, 'I am not now afraid to die. The subject has long been familiar to me. It is divested of all its terrors. "I know that my Redeemer liveth." I enjoy His presence this side the Jordan, and doubt not but the waters will divide when He calls me to pass through.'
"On seeing her mother weep, and her father retiring in sorrow from the 'post of observation,' she said with great composure, 'My dear parents, weep not for me. I shall soon, very soon be released from all my pain, and see Him, "whom having not seen, I love; in whom, though I see Him not, yet believing, I rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." I leave you in this vale of sorrow, to ascend the mount of bliss; and I hope you will follow me. And O! that he who has been the guilty cause of my early death, may obtain mercy in that day when we must stand together before the judgment-seat.' She spoke but little after this, and at seven o'clock the same evening she said, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,' smiled, and expired.
"Since her death her parents, who are virtuous, but not pious, have been inconsolable; they reproach themselves in the bitterest terms for the inducements which they threw in the way of the murderer of their daughter and the destroyer of their happiness; and though they have no doubt of her present felicity, yet, being ignorant of the nature of that felicity, and having no animating prospect of attaining it themselves, they sorrow as others who have no hope. I have visited them several times since the dear deceased left us; but grief has taken such an entire possession of their mind, that the words of consolation seem to aggravate its violence, and I fear, unless mercy interpose to prevent it, that the grave will soon be opened to receive them."
"Nothing," said Mr. Stevens, "gives such buoyancy to the mind, in the season of affliction, as communion with God. This holy exercise induces resignation, as well as submission to His will; raises up the soul above the conflicting elements of sorrow, into the tranquil regions of peace; and, by associating it with the unseen, yet not unfelt realities of the eternal world, makes it unwilling to look for permanent and substantial happiness amidst the fleeting possessions of earth."
"I was present," said Mrs. Stevens, "when my dear sister, Mrs. Lewellin, lost her Eliza. She wept as she followed her remains to the tomb; but she did not repine. She said to me, after the rites of sepulture were performed, as we sat together in the room in which the dear girl expired, 'If it had been the will of the Lord to have spared my child, I would have received her back with grateful joy; but as He has taken her to Himself, I can bow and say,
'I welcome all thy sov'reign will,
For all that will is love;
And when I know not what thou dost,
I'll wait the light above.'"
"Religion," said Mr. Ingleby, "has a fine effect on the soul in the day of prosperity; but its excellency is most visible in the season of adversity; then it shines with peculiar radiance, demonstrating its superhuman origin, by the omnipotence of its power in moderating the intensity of grief, and inspiring the soul with a hope full of immortality."