Catharine | Page 3

all my sickness hitherto." Wishes respecting some family arrangements were then expressed, particularly with reference to the younger children, and these wishes were uttered in about the same tone and manner as though we were parting for a temporary absence from each other. The mother of my youngest child had, at her death, given her in special charge to this daughter, and she wished to live that she might educate her. She made the transfer of her little trust with calmness, and then her "Good night" was uttered with a gentle playfulness, like that of her early days.
Nor was her frame of mind an excitement, or a fictitious experience, to end with sleep. The next forenoon she renewed the conversation. She said, "In the night I awoke many times, and always with this thought--I am not going to live. Instead of fear and dread, peace came with it. Names of Christ flowed in upon my mind; and once I awoke with these words in my thoughts--'And there shall be no night there.' Now I know that I am to die, I feel less nervous. I have a calm, unruffled feeling." She expressed some natural apprehensions, only, about the possibility of dissolution not having occurred when we should suppose that she was no more. I told her how kindly God had ordered it that we do not all die together, but one by one, the survivors doing all that the departed would desire--which satisfied her, and removed her only fear.
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!"
In almost the same breath, she said, "O, see that beautiful yellow,"--directing my attention to a sprig of acacia in a bunch of flowers; all showing that her religious feelings were not raptures, but flowed along upon a level with her natural delight at