estroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God; whom
I shall see for myself, and my eyes behold, and not another; though my
reins be consumed within me." This was indeed a very favourite passage
with her, and was selected by herself for her funeral text. But "the
word of Christ dwelt in her richly;" and it was sometimes equally
astonishing and delightful to hear with what copiousness, accuracy, and
animated expression, at more than 80 years of age, she would pour forth,
like a sparkling stream, a long series of beautiful quotations, her
feelings at the same time kindling into celestial rapture, and the
whole perhaps finished with that ecstatic verse of Dr. Watts.
"Haste, my beloved, fetch my soul
Up to thy bless'd abode;
Fly, for my spirit longs to see
My Saviour and my God."
She had outlived nearly all her contemporaries. Most of her friends had
preceded her to their rest, and sometimes she would chide herself for
still lingering in her upward flight, among the chilling clouds of these
lower regions, when she thought her wings should have borne her more
rapidly onward to join the company of the blessed. Thus she expresses
herself in one of her memorandums: "O Lord, when I look around me, and
feel I am bereaved of human joys, and behold the ravages which thou hast
made among my dear, beloved friends and kindred in the flesh, I am
astonished at the strength of that depravity, which leads me still to
cling to this dying world. Why, oh, why do I not rest my weary soul on
the unchangeable realities of heaven? There shall I meet those very dear
ones who sleep in Jesus. Animating hope! Oh, then, let me march boldly
on, nor faint in the day of rebuke; but may I be enabled to yield up all
my earthly comforts when Jesus calls and demands, that I may find my all
in him."
It was her privilege often to climb to the summit of Pisgah; and when
she descended again into the plain, how delightfully would she talk,
and as in the very dialect of the country, of that land of fair and
beauteous prospect which lies beyond the Jordan. There were seasons when
no other subject seemed welcome to her thoughts. She would sit at such
times watching the countenances of her friends, and at a break in the
conversation, which she could not hear, drop a short sentence full of
the love and joy of heaven. She seemed to have an inward and divine
light which shone through her soul, and made it a region of pure and
celestial tho
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