151. Illness and Death of a Servant at Rydal Mount.
Our anxieties are over, and our sorrow is not without heartfelt, I may say heavenly, consolation. Dear, and good, and faithful, and dutiful Jane breathed her last about twelve o'clock last night. The doctor had seen her at noon; he found her much weaker. She said to him, 'I cannot stand now,' but he gave us no reason to believe her end was so very near. You shall hear all particulars when we are permitted to meet, which God grant may be soon. Nothing could be more gentle than her departure.
Yesterday Mary read to her in my presence some chapters from the New Testament, and her faculties were as clear as any one's in perfect health, and so they have ever been to the last.[222]
152. Humility.
Writing to a friend, he says: 'I feel myself in so many respects unworthy of your love, and too likely to become more so.' (This was in 1844.) 'Worldly-minded I am not; on the contrary, my wish to benefit those within my humble sphere strengthens seemingly in exact proportion to my inability to realise those wishes. What I lament most is, that the spirituality of my nature does not expand and rise the nearer I approach the grave, as yours does, and as it fares with my beloved partner. The pleasure which I derive from God's works in His visible creation is not with me, I think, impaired, but reading does not interest me as it used to do, and I feel that I am becoming daily a less instructive companion to others. Excuse this egotism. I feel it necessary to your understanding what I am, and how little you would gain by habitual intercourse with me, however greatly I might benefit from intercourse with you.'[223]
153. Hopefulness.
Writing to a friend at a time of public excitement, he thus speaks: 'After all (as an excellent Bishop of the Scotch Church said to a friendly correspondent of mine), "Be of good heart; the affairs of the world will be conducted as heretofore,—by the foolishness of man and the wisdom of God."'[224]