Catharine | Page 7

love. But if we hear of salvation by Christ all our life long, and know our duty, but prefer the pleasures of sin for a season, and think that in the swellings of Jordan we shall find peace and safety, our conduct deserves all the opprobrious names which are heaped upon it by inspired tongues and pens. We who are parents must teach our children that religion does not consist merely in being pardoned, and, if pardoned, no matter whether early or late; but that it is the first, the constant, the all-pervading rule of life, God and his service the chief end of man, and that the pleasures of religion are the sweetest pleasures, hallowing all others which are innocent, and leading us to reject those, and only those, which would be unsuitable or injurious, even if religious custom did not forbid them. We must know this, and practise upon it, ourselves; else, how can we expect the children to believe it?
The exceeding relief which a timely preparation for death by an early consecration of herself to God, imparted to this child and to us, was felt in this, that she and we had no distressing thoughts at her total inability, for a long time, to join in prayer with others, or to be conversed with in any way that excited much feeling. The diseased throat, where, as we all know, our emotions, even in health and strength, make such interference with our comfort, prevented her from joining in any religious exercises, because she would then be liable to the excitement of feelings which, in the way just intimated, would have injured her. With such affections of the bronchial passages, efforts of mind which are not spontaneous are sometimes agony. Connected endeavors to follow conversation and prayer were impossible, and she told me, on saying this, that she took great comfort from a remark, in a book, addressed to a sick person--"Do not think, but pray." She prayed much herself; her thoughts, too, were prayers, in certain cases. Now, in that weakened condition, what could she have done, and what would have been her father's feelings, had she not, in health and strength, arrived at such a state of religious knowledge and experience as to remove anxiety for her spiritual welfare, and to make us feel that she had Christ in her, the hope of glory? When the cry was made, "Behold, the bridegroom cometh," she arose and trimmed her lamp, and had oil in her vessel with her lamp. Wealth could not purchase the relief and satisfaction which this gave to her friends;--so truly is religion called the "pearl of great price;" so literally true are the Saviour's words, "But one thing is needful." It is the greatest blessing which a young person can bestow on Christian parents, to be a Christian; and what its value is to surviving parents, ask those who sorrow as they that have no hope. When a young Christian comes to die, he testifies that he lost nothing, but gained every thing, with eternal life, by being a Christian in his early years. I can imagine what this child would say to one and another of her young friends who may read these pages, and how she would seek to persuade them, as the first great duty of their existence, and for their best good here, and for their everlasting peace, to choose the good part, which will never be taken away from them.
Her funeral was a scene from which many went away rejoicing in God; and not a few date new progress in the Christian life from it, by means of the new and striking illustration which they there had of the Saviour's power and love. The Choir struck the key note of heaven in their opening strains, by chanting, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing." They gave us, too, her favorite song, by which she was remembered in several circles, at home and abroad, before she was sick, and the words of which, now, seem to have had a prophetic meaning from her lips:--
"I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger; I can tarry, I can tarry but a night;"--
which was sung at the funeral with a sweetness which added much to the associations with it in our minds; and in the closing hymn, how strange it seemed, at a funeral, to hear the singers, though by our own request and though in accordance with all which had passed, bid us
"Proclaim abroad his name, Tell of his matchless fame, What wonders done! Shout through hell's dark profound, Let the whole earth resound, Till the high heavens rebound, The victory's won;"--
and to hear them, as they cried