posure, "how pleasant it will be to get home after all these conflicts into the arms of Jesus! how trifling they will then appear, though so hard to poor mortality, but the Lord is near; oh what an eminent favour, what an unspeakable mercy that he is so near: from the very first he has seemed to overshadow me, all my impatience he passes by and forgives, he remembers that I am but dust, he smiles, he comforts, he cherishes me." I remarked that her bodily sufferings had been very great almost throughout. answered, "In the beginning I had great conflict, and felt my pain very trying, but at length I got to resignation, and by prayer could say, Thy will be done; and now I have desired that when I am taken it may be in a calm and tranquil moment, that the pangs may not be such as to preclude the possibility of my nearest connections being around me, but the Lord's blessed will be done. He is all goodness to me, and will relieve me in his own good time." "Yes," she For the last two days of her life she spoke but seldom, and that with difficulty, apparently owing to the oppression and hurry of breathing; which were such, that except when some one fanned her, she dared not venture to doze, feeling, as she herself expressed it, that without that artificial air she could not breathe at all. On first day evening she had a little of that rambling which results from extreme weakness, and did not seem fully to know those about her; but this quite subsided, and she was next morning perfectly clear, yet did not say much, being mostly in great pain and suffering, more so under the approaches of dissolution than we thought could be the case, considering her exhausted state. But about four hours previously to her release, as if permitted to shew us that the bias of her mind remained firm even at that awful moment, she said, with strength and clearness, "thank merciful Goodness, that pain is better." She appeared once or twice after this to be engaged in prayer, but the words could not be understood and so peaceful was her close, that those around her knew not the precise moment when she entered her everlasting rest; though her nearest connections were witnesses of the solemn, and to them deeply afflictive scene, about half-past eight o'clock on second day evening, 19th of 3d month, being exactly nine weeks from her first seizure. The desire of her soul was thus remarkably granted, and the last enemy disarmed of his sting. May she," being dead," yet speak with availing emphasis the awfully instructive language, "Be ye also ready." FINIS. London: Printed by Knight and Bagster, 14, Bartholomew Close. |