(Continued from p. 73.)
In accordance with her own request, made when her speech was failing her—that I would not leave her until I saw her “over”—I stood beside her, crying to the dear Lord on her behalf, and was not only enabled to do so with much freedom, but also with much comfort, to part with her for a season. This is now the fourth time within the last few months that it pleased the Captain of my salvation to assign me the same post, and, blessed be His Name, with the same strength and comfort. On the Thursday following, her remains were interred at Dores, beside those of her beloved mother and two sisters. They were lovely in life, and in death they were not divided.
Thus died, at the age of seventeen years and six months, my dear and good Mary Ann. She was five feet nine inches high, well formed, and of a lovely and pleasing aspect. She was naturally clever, and her mind, as far as cultivated, showed itself to be of a superior order. From her childhood, she was much given to her Bible and to prayer. She read much, and being blessed with a singularly retentive memory, she could draw supplies for every hour. She had a good assortment of suitable books, but latterly her chiefest favourites were Marshall’s “Mystery of Sanctification” and Fisher’s “Marrow of Modern Divinity.” With the Bible and these two books, she used to say, she could not conceive how any in reason could perish for lack of knowledge, and wished that one of each would be in every family. In attending church she was equally attentive; and for the benefit of others, as well as for her own, she was enabled to take with her the most of the sermons she heard. Often of a Sabbath evening did I find her in some solitary corner, with the other little ones about her, imparting unto them of the good instructions she herself had gotten that day in church. On her beloved Jesus alone she built all her hopes of salvation. A few days before she died, she being in a rapturous frame at the time, I said to her, “Would you now dare venture to depart, grounding on that joyful frame?” She replied, with much emphasis, “On nothing but Christ—on none but Christ;” and in a while said, “Frames and feelings are sweet, but trusting on them is like fixing the anchor in the ship instead of in the rock.” Equally humbling were her thoughts and views of herself. Once I said to her, “I am afraid that in the abundance of such gracious manifestations, you will forget what you are in yourself, or be puffed up above measure.” “Impossible,” she replied; “but rather the more I see of His love, the more am I humbled in myself; but ’tis hardly worth while to complain, but rather rejoice.” Like her Saviour she would frequently illustrate what she meant by a suitable simile, and in reference to her state, she said, “Like a piece of cork tied to a stone in the bottom of the sea, so am I here; but my dear Lord will soon order the cord to be cut, and then shall I mount with joy on high, leaving behind me for ever the body of this death, and the regions of darkness and trials.” And never did the way-worn traveller long so much for his good bed at night as she longed for the grave. “There,” she would say, “shall I rest from sin and suffering; there shall my dew be as the dew of herbs; and there in union with my lovely Jesus shall my body sweetly rest until the Resurrection.”
(To be continued.)