THE DEATH OF THE MISSIONARY'S WIFE.

silver-than "gems from the mountain or pearls
from the ocean." I seize upon it in the fond
hope that it was uttered in the inspiration of
faith. Nature will be heard, will loose the
floodgates of feeling for the moment; yet,
cheered on by these words, I feel nerved to
buckle on my armour anew, to do or to suffer
whatever God may allot me, "all the days of
my appointed time, until my change come.'
Now she used similar language in relation to
her children. What she did not see, she be-
lieved. She trusted that God would be the por-
tion of her little ones. But this is not to make
you presumptuous and careless in your sins,
but to stir you up to choose God for your por-
tion yourselves; for without that, the prayers
and faith of your mother will be utterly un-
availing. Death will soon bring you at his feet.
Willing or unwilling, you will soon be grap-
pling with him, and he will not leave you, till
he leave you like your mother before me—a
breathless corpse. What an awful thing death
must be to those who have no hope in Christ!
To be struggling, consciously struggling with
death, with the second death in full prospect
before them? It makes one dizzy to look at it
from a place of safety. Could you have watched
over your mother, as I have done, you would
think that death, under the most favourable cir-
cumstances, was sufficiently fearful.
"What a
dreadful thing sin is," remarked your mother,
during one of her painful attacks," if after the
sting of death is removed, it is still necessary to
suffer so much." But added, after a pause, “it
is needful for us to understand something of its
heinousness."

Day-time.

all the changes on the dial-plate of disease,
down to that dark point where, owing to the in-
tensity of sufferings, I rejoiced, from the love
I bore her, that she was a lifeless corpse. Me-
dical skill has done all it could, from the time
no danger was apprehended, until it declared
itself baffled, and medicine nought. Christian
kindness, sisterly affection, and conjugal love,
have done their utmost; yet, there she lies be-
fore me, in her shroud! All, all in vain; yet
not all in vain to me. Near the closing scene,
she threw her death-struck arms around my
neck and said, "Kind husband, and best of
friends! I can never repay you for all your
kindness."-Your mother did not die of any
disease. She died of sheer debility, increased
by the enervating influences of the climate.
Her physician remarked, as he sat by her dying
bed last evening: "She has had no symp-|
toms that would be at all dangerous in another
person, who had vigour in her system. But!
there was nothing for art to work upon. All
the powers of nature were worn out. She was
sensible of the state of her constitution, long
before others were. She observed to me, several
weeks ago: "I thought it probable I should wear
out in this way, and therefore had clothes made
up before hand for you and the children, that
you might be well provided for, but prepared
none for myself." I never saw a living person
so literally reduced to a skeleton as she has
been for the last month. Her countenance,
too, has latterly had painful traits of suffering
engraven upon it; but since death has done his
work, she has, much to my astonishment, re-
sumed that same, sweet, placid aspect, only more
thin and pale, which she had when I first met
her at her uncle's fire-side in Chesnut Street.

You will wish to know the particulars of your mother's sickness and death; but I have The most remarkable trait apparent during taken no notes, nor recorded any of her sayings; her sickness was the calm and unruffled peace I must, therefore, depend upon my memory, and that constantly pervaded her mind. During many things will probably escape it now, that the three or four months that I stood by hei may come to mind hereafter. One massive, crush-sick-bed, the breath of trouble never once ap ing feeling of the distressing scenes through peared to agitate her bosom. She often chastwhich I have passed, seems to obliterate every ened my sanguine hopes for her recovery, when thing else. I remember, however, the com- ground for hope appeared, and as often cheered fortable prospect we had of your mother's being my desponding spirits, when those prospects soon raised from her confinement, of the en- were beclouded. "Remember," she would say, suing debility, and the necessity to call a wet-"what is your loss, is my eternal gain." Never nurse-then the rallying a little-then the relapse-then sister Bennet taking the babe over to her house for "a few days," to leave the mother quiet-then the giving up of my school, to enable me to give up my whole time and attention to her wants-then the numberless relapses and recoveries, each of which, like a series of steps down to the grave, left her lower than the preceding. I remember the intense desire with which I watched every symptom that promised recovery; and I have not forgotten the "hope deferred, which maketh the heart sick." I cannot forget the agony of watching over one who, in sober truth, I loved better

my own life, from glowing health, through

did she manifest any anxiety to live. Once
she said her mind was much in the same state
as Paul's, when he wrote, "I am in a strait be-
twixt two; having a desire to depart, and be
with Christ, which is far better; nevertheless.
to abide in the flesh is more needful to you." In
the early stages of her sickness, when danger ||
was first apprehended, she observed: "I have||
not the least anxiety about the issue, not the
slightest. I have no choice to live or die.”
One
of her most common ejaculations throughout
her sickness was, "Thy will be done;" and would
often add, in tones of deep emphasis :

"Sweet to lie passive in His hands,
And know no will but His."

THE DEATH OF THE MISSIONARY'S WIFE.

I never saw her weep but once during her sickness, and that was what proved to be the last time she saw her infant. As I held it to her lips, before it was returned to Mrs. Bennet, for a parting kiss, she embraced it fervently, and bursting into tears, said: "Poor babe, you will never know a mother's love! a mother's love!" Here were chords of feeling which I rarely dared to touch; and never, but to draw my fingers lightly over them, like a casual, careless breath. | I feared to agitate what my own trembling hand was but ill able to quiet again. Little appeared on the surface, but there was clearly a deep under-current in the soul, which grace repressed. On one occasion I observed: "If missionaries do not die, yet, circumstanced as they are in this country, they have to part with their children with little less anguish than on the death of one of the parties." "Ah!" she replied, "missionary work is hard work, and none ought ever to engage in it that are not called to it. No, certainly, none ought ever to come, unless specially called.” I said, her uninterrupted peace was remarkable, but it was not, to one who knew the previous exercises of her heart while in health. She was truly dead to the world long before death itself came in sight. Conversing on death at one time, she said:

But timorous mortals start and shrink
To cross this narrow sea,

And linger, trembling on the brink,
And fear to launch away.'

"I have no fear," she added; "that fear is taken
away." Speaking, on another occasion, of the
goodness of God in exempting her from the temp-
tations and doubts that often assail Christians in
their last days, she observed: "Bless God for
the gracious influence of the Spirit that he has
vouchsafed me within the last two years." At
another time she exclaimed:

"Rock of Ages, cleft for me,

Let me hide myself in thee;"

and continued, "If ever sinner got into that, I did, at Pyee-khyn. You and brother Vinton had been conversing together about that hymn. and when you went to meeting, I stayed behind in the house. That was a memorable occasion -one long to be remembered. Tell sister Vinton it is worth living for, to translate that hymn into Karen."

149

to their drowsiness, and left me for the most part alone at the very time their aid was most needed to afford your mother a measure of comfort. When day came, and the sisters as certained the state of things, they came over and attended her through the closing scene. it was mercifully attended with little acute suffering. When the doctor called in the morning, and asked her if she was in pain, she readily replied in the negative. She did not appear to be conscious, excepting once after two o'clock in the afternoon. After repeated attempts to arouse her attention in vain, Mrs. Bennet said, about four o'clock, "My dear sister, do you want any thing?" Much to our surprise, she replied, in a still, low whisper, just loud enough to be heard distinctly, "No." It was the last word she attempted to utter, and the last sign of consciousness she gave. Life continued to ebb weaker and weaker for three hours more, when she ceased to breathe, without a struggle.

She would frequently, during her protracted
sickness, allude to her apparent uselessness.
"Lying here doing nothing," was a common
remark; but added once, after a pause, "Yet
those who wait, serve too." Once, in pain, she
observed, "Moth taumuth (Thou shalt surely
die), is the curse that rests upon man.
It must
be passed through, though the sting of death be
removed." She often quoted Pope's "Dying
Christian to his Soul;" and when in pain, would
frequently breathe out, with deep feeling, the
last strain of the following couplet:-

"Cease, fond nature! cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life.'

As I turned her aching frame in the bed,| she would often, in sweetly plaintive tones, exclaim: "Oh! that I had the wings of a dove. for then would I flee away and be at rest." She frequently quoted appropriate portions of hymns.

It was with great difficulty that she could articulate so as to be understood, even in the early part of the day she died. Several times she spoke to me without my being able to understand her, though she repeated her words two or three times. She could understand, however, when spoken to, very readily; and signify assent or dissent in an equally satisfac On the last evening she was free from spasms, tory manner. I once asked, "Is your mind and I began to hope she would get some quiet calm ?" She gave the ready sign of assent, in sleep; but before midnight was reached, I saw reply. An hour subsequently, I inquired, "Is unequivocal tokens that Death himself had your mind in peace?" On receiving the come. Her power of utterance began to fail usual indication of assent, I said, "Try and say her, and she became much more helpless than Peace." She made the attempt-it was 'Peace' ever. "I know it," she observed, in her usual when it left her heart, but the organs of speech calm way; "when people come to their dying performed their office so imperfectly, that it rehour, they cannot help themselves." Ah! those quired the ear of affection to understand it were to me agonizing hours. One or two Bur-when it left her lips. It was after this, when mese women, beside her usual Burmese attendant, stood around her bed and fanned her, during the early part of the night; but when they saw that death had come, they gave way

the sisters were around her bed, that I took up her" Daily Food"-a precious little book to her

and read to her the portion for the day, which seemed to me peculiarly appropriate to her

:

circumstances. She gave signs that she under-
stood and appreciated it. I transcribe it :-
"The mountains shall depart, and the hills
be removed; but my kindness shall not depart
from thee, neither shall the covenant of my
peace be removed, saith the Lord, that hath
mercy on thee."

"Let the wind blow, and billows roll,
Hope is the anchor of my soul;
It fastens on a land unknown,

And moors me to my Father's throne."

"Hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost."

Conversing on one of her last days, on the great work to be done for the heathen, and how little we understood the ways of God, in removing well-qualified labourers from the field, as he was constantly doing, she said it was probably to make them more useful in some other way that we did not understand, or words to this effect; and added: "Tell the native Christians that I loved them to the end. Tell them

to strive to get to heaven; that the kingdom of
heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take
it by force.
Tell them," she continued,
stretching out her poor, withered arm, with an
energy such as she manifested on no other
occasion, and in tones so loud and sonorous that
I was startled-"tell them to lay hold on
eternal life."

my imagination, and still each seems to say, Not got mama.

66

I have written to you as men and women, and not as children. You will soon be men and women, and then you will understand why I could not do otherwise. I feel as a man, and not as a child; and I must write as I feel, if I write at all. In the loss of your mother, you have lost a correspondent who had a peculiarly happy tact in writing to children. Still, should the death of your mother prove the means of your repentance unto life, and the consecration of yourselves to God, your afflicted father will go on singing, down to the grave,

"Sweet affliction, sweet affliction."

THE FIRST GRIEF.

THEY tell me first and early love outlives all after dreams;

But the memory of a first great grief to me more lasting seems--

The grief that marks our dawning youth to memory

And o'er the path of future years a lengthened
ever clings,
shadow flings.

And one there mourned a brother dead, who would have died for him.

spring;

But if the birds sang on the trees, I did not hear them sing;

I have noted down the most prominent things connected with your mother's sickness and death, that have occurred to me within the I know not if 'twas summer then, I know not if 'twalast twenty-four hours, and now pause. I pause, and find myself alone. I thought to derive some confort, and find some society in your little sisters; and when they returned this evening from Mrs. Wade's, they came into the lone room, looked around a few times, and then simultaneously burst into tears. eldest

The

If

flowers came forth to deck the earth, their bloon I did not see:

I

looked upon one withered flower, and none else bloomed for me.

woe;

Each eye was dull and overcast, and every voice was low;

was convulsed with deep sobs, but the younger exclaimed, in her Burman idiom, "Not got A sad and silent time it was, within that house of nama." Poor child! I know the feeling which prompted that remark. It lies this moment gnawing at my heart like a worm. The room in which I sit writing your mother and myself have occupied together for ten or twelve years. Every chair, table, box, and book, as I Look around upon them, brings her up before

And from each cheek at intervals the blood appeared to start,

As if recalled in sudden haste to aid the sinking heart.

LETTERS TO A ROMISH BISHOP.

In one of the large interior towns of Ireland where As thoughts of his sweet childhood rose like odours I resided, the bishop of the diocese met his priests, from dead flowers.

The gayest hours trip lightest by, and leave the I soon recognised it to be Father B, the miraclefaintest trace,

worker. Running in, I announced with some ex

But the deep, deep track that sorrow wears, no time citement, to the lady of the house, that Father Bcan e'er efface.