(Continued from page 109.)
I can tell you the time and place when He manifested His love to me, and caused me to love Him with an everlasting love, and that was the evening on which I heard Mr. North in Inverness. His text was ‘Wilt thou go with this man?’ (Gen. xxiv. 58). I thought, as he was in the course of his sermon opening up the lovely character of the man Jesus, and showing forth His matchless love to fallen sinners, that my heart was correspondingly opening; but when in the application he called out as with the voice of God, ‘Here! here! the Lord of heaven—the wonder of angels—the delight of saints—and the desire of nations, is now offering Himself freely to you as your all in all for time and eternity. Oh! will you take Him—take Him? This may be the last offer you shall have of Him—will you let Him go? oh! don’t’—I thought my soul was one flame of love to Him—I could not—I would not—I did not let Him go. I know those who were about me were noticing my state, but I could not contain myself. I was overcome with love, love that constrained me to love Him, and since then till now, and, I believe, to all eternity. I can think of none but Himself. Oh, His love is written deep here,” laying her palm upon her breast, “and as a token of His love to me He will soon grant me my desire, and that is, ‘that where He is, there I may be also.'”
Often, often during her few remaining days did she revert to that happy season, the day of her espousals, and the day of the gladness of her heart, and wonder if there could be so much as one soul there that could let such a glorious offer pass. The last time she was out with me, the 24th of April, that sermon was the subject of her conversation going to and coming from church. For the good Mr. North she cherished ever afterwards the most Christian affection. She never saw nor heard him more. Hearing on Friday before her death that he was in Naim, she said, “I wonder if he can be forward soon.” On my giving it as my opinion that it was likely he could not until the second Sabbath following, she, with her usual sweet smile, said, “I will then be in glory; but, never mind, I shall soon see him there. Yet, if you see him, tell him of my case, to encourage him to spend and to be spent in declaring to all the overcoming love of Jesus.” And in a while she said, “Oh that my voice could be heard from pole to pole, that I might tell all of how ravishing His love is! and I cannot see how any could but love Him.”
She being now, as already stated, so very communicative, I asked her shortly after that as to the state of her mind before she heard Mr. North. She said that for years back she was fully persuaded that salvation was attainable only by real union with Christ by faith; and that, especially since her mother’s death, which happened eleven months before her own, she made it her earnest endeavour to lay hold upon Him, but could never be satisfied that she was enabled to do so until that time; adding in a little, “I know I believe now; I would as soon doubt my being.” I asked her as to how early in life she began to entertain any serious thought. She, with her habitual smile, said, “Well, I’ll tell you, although I daresay you may think it odd.” (I keep her own language in this, and in everything as nearly as possible.) “When very young, I cannot say how young I might be, but I believe I was no more than seven years old at the time, I had two dreams that made an indelible impression on my mind, and, I know, had a corresponding effect upon my conduct through life. One night I dreamed that evil spirits in the shape of dogs were going through the country, and that whomsoever they bit was sure to go to hell (naming several who were bit by them, some of whom still are, and some are not). I thought,” continued she, “some one came in telling us that they were coming to our house, on which all the doors were closed, and we hid ourselves. I, meanwhile, looked out through the keyhole of the front door, and saw them standing out, and oh! what a horrid sight. I said, How good it is for us to be here, and that all the doors are closed, when Isabella, who is long since in glory, and who I thought was standing beside me, said that that did not signify in the case of these, as they could go through a stone wall, but what kept them out was a circle that was around the house. The view I got of them frightened me dreadfully. I awoke, and found it was a dream; but the effect of it stuck to me closely, and, to a great extent, made me a coward all my days” (and so she was very timorous in the dark). “I never, until now,” continued she, “told any person of it, nor of how much I was terrified. Ever since, it formed an earnest part of my prayers that we might be all kept from the evil one. Still these terrors followed me, and often prevented me from praying in secluded places. Some time after that I had another dream that gave me as much comfort as the other gave me terror. It was as follows:—I thought I was standing in such a place near the house (naming it), and, looking upwards, I was very much struck and delighted with the appearance of the skies, which were all over of the most beautiful light blue. While admiring them with much pleasure, my attention was directed to an exceeding bright opening which took place right above me. On this bright opening I now fixed my eye, and while gazing intently at it I saw the blood of Christ coming down through it in a curling stream, and falling upon me. I felt it so warm and so refreshing that I awoke with great delight. Under the many terrors and trials which I have had since, this dream afforded me much comfort. In the darkest and most troublous times, I could not believe but that I was one for whom He had shed His blood. I believe,” continued she, “that all dreams are not to be attended to, but I believe also that the Lord speaks still in dreams.”
Equal to her desire to depart to the full enjoyment of her Saviour was, that all mankind should partake of the love of Jesus. Familiar must it be still to the many who visited her, how she would strengthen herself upon her bed—with the ever angelic smile upon her fair but death-like countenance, with holy fire in her large blue eyes, and with an utterance and understanding that astonished all—and press upon them the necessity of coming to Him in His own time and way—that is, now, and through Christ; and how, even after exhausting her little strength, she could hardly part with any until she got a promise that they would believe on His name. “But remember,” she would say among other things, “it will not do for you to believe that you are a lost sinner, and that Christ is able to save you. You must take Him, you must receive Him as your own Saviour, or He cannot save you, any more than bread can sustain your natural life unless you take it, howsoever much you may feel your need of it, and believe that it can support you.”
I believe that few left her without a conviction, the fruits of which the day of judgment alone will show. When and where she observed any indifference, she would apply with renewed vigour. “Oh,” she would say, “how can I part with you as one without Christ, and, therefore, on the way to everlasting torments, and as one that may be saved if you but take Him! Oh! won’t you take Him? How can you live without Him, or die without Him? What would I be today if I had Him not? But I have Him—I have Him—and therefore, as you may see, I not only have no fear of death, but long to depart. Think, oh! think what will be your thought and state when you come to die, if you have no part in Christ. Come and look at Him, and I am sure you cannot but love Him, for He is altogether love.” The case of one woman in particular who, when pressed as above, said, I believe rather inadvertently, that it was too late for such a poor sinner as she was to come to Christ for salvation, affected her very much. This was the only thing for which I saw her shed tears during these memorable eighteen days. To another who said, when thus pressed, that faith is the gift of God, and that no one can believe until God works it in his soul, she replied, “Yes, I know that faith is the gift of God, wrought in the soul by the Spirit of God; but observe, He commands you to believe. Now, try to do so, just because He commands you. The Spirit works faith in the heart by assisting our endeavours to believe; so if you don’t try to take Him, or, in other words, to believe, you have no grounds to hope that you shall ever believe, any more than that the man could have his withered hand restored, if he had not, according to the ability given him, tried to raise it up in obedience to the Divine command. Oh, then come to Him, and at His own command ‘ask,’ and cleave to Him in earnest prayer with His own promise, ‘and it shall be given you,’ and you shall not come to Him in vain.”
For the young she was specially concerned. May the good Lord bless to such of them as visited her, her earnest and impressive exhortations. I cannot but remember the solemn emphasis with which she said to a young lassie—and a dear companion of her own (after addressing her, according to her strength, in the most pathetic manner, rising feebly upon her elbow, and fixing her eyes in silence upon her for some time), “Oh, Annie! Annie! how happy I would be to see you in heaven!” and then she gently lay down.
The hardness of the human heart and the natural state of the world at large, were her only cause of distress. “Oh!” she would say, “I am grieved for the world. How awful to think of their perishing state, and that it is so easy to be saved. Nothing but to take and live; and yet how few have Christ.” My last question to her, when her speech was far gone, was, “If you had your will now, what would you wish?” In feeble and broken accents she said, “That—all—mankind—would—be—saved.” On the morning of Friday, May 22nd, to my usual salutation, “What cheer today, my dear?” she replied with great brightness, “Good cheer—if you could tell me that my Beloved would come and take me home before night.” During the whole of this day, and even to her departure, it was a frequent expression with her, “Why tarry the wheels of thy chariot?” and not long before her release, she said, “If a funeral sermon were preached about me, I would like that to be the text.”
As she was drawing nearer her end, her wearied and wearying soul was getting more and more restless in its suffering and fast-declining tenement. For this day (Friday), and until well on in the morning of Saturday, the 23rd, her sufferings were great; then, she having got a little easier, I, at her own expressed desire, retired to rest at eight o’clock. Exactly at ten I was called up, and on entering her bedroom, the sight that met my eyes is beyond the power of human language to describe. There she lay, with her head pretty high, her hands, already pale and cold in death, feebly uplifted, the last cold dew lying heavily on her pallid but angelic countenance, her fine full eyes, which she fixed upon me, beaming with triumphant joy, and, with the ever-hallowed smile, said, in a strong and confident voice, “Behold the Bridegroom cometh; don’t you think He is now at hand?” On my answering slowly in the affirmative, she said, “Yes; and the bride hath made herself ready; yea, He hath given me all readiness.” In a while after that she said, “I know that now death’s pangs are on me, but I fear it not.” She asked me several times as to how soon I thought her Beloved would come for her. At one time she said, “He was three hours in death’s pangs Himself, and should He leave me the same time in them, I’ll get home at one, and oh! what a joyful hour!” Nevertheless, it was His sovereign pleasure to leave her in this state of suffering until ten o’clock of the following morning (Sabbath, the 24th), and during these twenty-four hours her furnace was heated sevenfold that He might the more magnify the riches of His power and grace in her case. On one occasion, as she observed me much affected beside her, she asked me the reason why. I said it was not because of any apprehension I had as to her eternal state, but because of her distress in the body. She looked at me full in the face, and said, “I am in distress; I cannot say whether my pain or my weakness is greatest; and my weakness is such that I always feel as if I was coming out of a swoon; but,” she continued, laying her death-like hand upon her breast, “He gives me such joy that I would rather be for ever with Him as I am, than be in health and have all the world without Him.” In a while after this she said, “He will not leave me long in this state. I think I hear His voice saying to me, ‘Come with me from Lebanon.’ Oh! how little will I think of this a million of years hence!” About ten at night, she expressed a wish to see, for the last time, the little remnant of the family left. When they came to her bedside, she, in the midst of her great weakness and suffering, had to be raised a little, and supported upon her bed, and spoke with difficulty as follows:—”I have called you that I might see you once more, and exhort you for the last time to make sure of an interest in Jesus; take Him, and you are sure of that—take Him, and you shall be happy in life and in death. I am now dying, and see how happy I am, just because I have Him. Oh! take Him, and we shall all meet yet in happiness, to part no more.” She then was laid down much exhausted, and, turning a loving eye towards the little sorrowing group, held out her cold hand to each of them, and bade them farewell, saying, in low accents, “I shall see you here no more. O Lord, bless and keep them!” I need not tell you that the whole scene was truly affecting; indeed, she was the most courageous of us all herself. Parting with her only sister, a child of six years of age, was very trying.
When it struck twelve o’clock, I said, “This is the beginning of the Sabbath.” “Yes,” said she, “and the beginning of an everlasting Sabbath unto me.” From this time until her departure I could compare her appearance to nothing but to a heavenly spirit shut up in a body of clay, and struggling nobly for release. About nine o’clock, her affectionate and dutiful aunt, whose attention to her was unremitting, gave her in a teaspoon a little wine mixed with as much water. After tasting it, she said, “I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” After this her breathing became very difficult. Seeing her lips moving, I listened close to her, and found her propping herself upon the promise as follows:—”I will never—never—never—leave thee; I will never—never—never—forsake—theec.” I could also afterwards follow her assaying, with difficulty, and in very broken accents, to repeat as follows:—
“Soon shall this earthly frame, dissolved,
In death and ruins lie;
But better mansions wait the just,
Prepared above the sky.
“An house eternal, built by God,
Shall lodge the holy mind,
When once those prison walls have fall’n
By which ’tis now confined.
“Hence, burdened with a weight of clay,
We groan beneath the load,
Waiting the hour which sets us free,
And brings us home to God.
“We know that when the soul uncloth’d
Shall from this body fly,
‘Twill animate a purer frame
With life that cannot die.
“Such are—the—hopes—that—cheer—the—just—”
Here her speech faltered, and, though endeavouring to speak, I could only know by the heavenly glow of her eyes, and by the motion of her lips, that she was trying to say, “Happy—happy—happy!” a word she often used to express in answer to my questions as to her state of mind, when, through the intensity of her trouble, she could say no more. It was also, I know, in reference to a request I made during the morning, that she would let me know, as long as she could, as to how she felt in her soul. In this state she continued until ten o’clock, when her happy spirit was released to the full enjoyment of all that she so earnestly wished. She departed, with the ever-hallowed smile on her lovely countenance, which brightened up in a manner remarked by all who saw her dead body.
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 Dore, 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 Marsha’l’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 wayworn 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 glorious resurrection morning, when the earth can hold me no longer, but, at His command, cast me out to enjoy Him, soul and body, unto all eternity.”
That the Lord of all grace may sanctify unto us His various dispensations, and give us also a clean, thorough bearing, and, when our call comes, to depart in holy joy and triumph, on the bosom of His eternal love, is the earnest prayer of
Your ever loving brother,
D. WHYTE.
“Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ.”
Dear reader, “I beseech you by the mercies of God” to “take Jesus” for your own Saviour, as this dear, happy girl took Him, and love Him as she loved Him: and then, whether you are continued here to live to the praise of His grace, or taken hence to be a sharer with Him in His glory, you will enjoy a “peace that passeth all understanding, and a joy that is unspeakable and full of glory.”