m her
chair upon the floor of her cabin insensible. The people lifted her up
and laid her upon the bed, but she never came to consciousness. She lay
without sense or motion until the next day, when she died. The slaves
said, "Old Marcia's heart broke."

Thus little Tidy was left alone in the world, without a single relative
to love her. Didn't she care much about it? That happened thirty
years ago, and she can not speak of it even now without tears. But she
comforts herself by saying, "I shall meet them in heaven." Annie may not
yet have arrived at that blessed home; but Marcia has rejoiced all these
years in the presence of the Lord she loved, and has found, by a glad
experience, that the happiness of heaven can compensate for all the
trials of earth.

"For God has marked each sorrowing day,
And numbered every secret tear;
And heaven's long age of bliss shall pay
For all his children suffer here."

And now I must tell you of another death which occurred about this same
time. It was that of Colonel Lee. He had been a rich and a proud man,
and it would seem, that, like the rich man in the parable, he had had
all his good things in this life; and now that he had come to the
gates of death, he found himself in a sadly destitute and lamentable
condition. He was afraid to die; and when he came to the very last, his
shrieks of terror and distress were fearful. His mind was wandering, and
he fancied some strong being was binding him with chains and shackles.
He screamed for help, and even called for Rosa, his faithful old
servant, to come and help him.

"Take off those hand-cuffs," he cried; "take them off. I can not bear
them. Don't let them put on those chains. Oh, I can't move! They'll drag
me away! Stop them; help me! save me!"

But, alas! no one could save him. The man who had all his life been
loading his fellow-creatures with chains and fetters was now in the
grasp of One mightier than he, who was "delivering him over into chains
of darkness, to be reserved unto the judgment."

How dreadful was such an end!

"I would rather be a slave with all my sorrows," said Tidy, when she
related this sad story, "and wait for comfort until I get to heaven,
than to have all the riches of all the slaveholders in the world, gained
by injustice and oppression; for I could only carry them as far as the
grave, and there they would be an awful weight to drag me down into
torments for ever."

CHA