She asked leave to make a request respecting her grave; that, if any
device were placed upon the stone, it might be of flowers, which had
been such a joy and consolation to her in her sickness. She named the
lily-of-the-valley and rose buds. "I love the white flowers," said she.
"If you think best, let them be represented in some simple way... One
great desire which I have had was to assort some leaves of flowers into
forms for you. As my bouquets fell to pieces; I gathered the best
petals, and leaves, and sprigs, and I have them in a book;" which, at
her request, I then reached for her. I turned the pages. The book was
full of beautiful relics from tokens of remembrance which kind friends
had sent to her, and among them were some curiously mottled, green and
rose-colored, petals, which she had designed for a wreath, on the first
page of the little herbarium, which it was her intention to prepare; and
then, with great hesitancy, and protesting their unworthiness, she
repeated these simple lines, which she had composed for an inscription
within the wreath. I wrote them down from her lips:
TO MY FATHER.
These flowers, which gave me such comfort and hope,
I pressed, in my sickness, for you;
Accept them, though faded; they never will droop;
And believe that my heart is there too.
They who showered these tokens of their regard upon her, will be
pleased to know that their gifts did not wholly perish, but that they
will constitute an abiding memorial of her friends, as well as of her.
"I know," she continued, "that I am a great sinner; but I also believe
that my sins are washed away by the blood of Christ." The way of
justification by faith was clear to her mind. She knew whom she
believed, and was persuaded that he was able to keep that which she had
committed to him against that day.
In her whispering voice, which disease had for some time so nearly
hushed, she said, "I shall sing in heaven." Her voice had been the charm
of many a pleasant circle. But she added, "I shall no more sing--
'I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger;
I can tarry, I can tarry but a night.'"
And in a moment she added,--
"Of that country to which I am going,
My Redeemer, my Redeemer is the light."
"Some people," she said, "wish to die in order to get rid of pain. What
a motive! I am afraid that sometimes they get rid of it only to renew
it. There was--" And here she checked herself, saying, "But I will not
mention any name," a feeling of charitableness and tenderness coming
over her, as though she might be thought to have judged a dying person
harshly.
The day before she died, as I was spending the Sabbath forenoon by her,
she breathed out these words:--
"O, how soft that bed must be,
Made in sickness, Lord, by thee!
And that rest, how soft and sweet,
Where Jesus and the sufferer meet!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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