Work on, then, Lord, till on my soul
Eternal Light shall break;
And in Thy likeness perfected,
I 'satisfied' shall wake."
On the evening of the 29th of January the duchess attempted to ask for
something. Miss Sandilands repeated the words, "My Beloved is mine, and
I am His." "Yes," she answered. This emphatic token of assent to a truth
which was essentially her own by appropriation was the last attempt she
made to speak. She fell asleep at half-past seven on the Sabbath
evening, the 31st of January, 1864. She went to the land where time is
no more, in her seventieth year, just reaching the allotted term of
life, as she had certainly in no ordinary degree performed its
allotted work.
There was no need of hired mourners at her funeral. The depth of real
grief was unprecedented. The sad procession was composed of many
hundreds of mourners, and of nearly seven hundred children from her
schools. The whole district was desolate and bereaved. The man was only
speaking what many another was thinking when he said, "This is the
greatest calamity that ever befell this district; of a' the dukes that
reigned here there was never one like her; there's none in this
neighbourhood, high or low, but was under some obligation to her, for
she made it her study to benefit her fellow-men; and what crowds o' puir
craturs she helped every day. And then for the spiritual, Huntly is
Huntly still, in a great degree, but the gude that's been done in it is
a' through her."
All that was mortal of this mother in Israel was laid to rest in Elgin
Cathedral. That noble fane contained the remains of no one more loved
than she. "I can't understand how people should love me," she used to
say. Others could understand it. And now that they could love her in
person no longer, they love her memory.
S.F. HARRIS, M.A., B.C.L.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Excellent Women, by Various
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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