holiness, and resignation. Cloud and agitation are at our feet. Heaven
is above us. Let us look there, and all is well."

We knelt. The minister prayed. He did not ask his Master to suspend his
judgments. He implored him to prepare the soul of the afflicted one for
its early flight, and to subdue the hearts of them all with his grace
and holy spirit. Let him who doubts the efficacy of _prayer_ seek to
clear his difficulty in the season of affliction, or when death sits
grimly at the hearth--he shall be satisfied.

If it were a consolation and a joy in the midst of our tribulation to
behold the father chastened by the heavy blow which had fallen so
suddenly upon his age, how shall I express the ineffable delight--yes,
delight, amidst sorrow the most severe--with which I contemplated the
beloved maiden, upon whose tender years Providence had allowed to fall
so great a trial. Fully sensible of her position, and of the near
approach of death, she was, so long as she could see her parent and her
lover without distress, patient, cheerful, and rejoicing. Yes, weaker
and weaker as she grew, happier and happier she became in the
consciousness of her pure soul's increase. Into her ear had been
whispered, and before her eyes holy spirits had appeared with the
mysterious communication, which, hidden as it is from us, we find
animating and sustaining feeble nature, which else would sink, appalled
and overwhelmed. There was not one of us who did not live a witness to
the truth of the heavenly promise, "_as thy days, so shall thy strength
be_;" not one amongst the dearest friends of the sufferer, who did not
feel, in the height of his affliction, that God would not cast upon his
creatures a burden which a Christian might not bear. But to _her_
especially came the celestial declaration with power and might. An
angel, sojourning for a day upon the earth, and preparing for his
homeward flight, could not have spread his ready wing more joyfully,
with livelier anticipation of his native bliss, than did the maiden look
for her recall and blest ascension to the skies. In her presence I had
seldom any grief; it was swallowed up and lost in gratitude for the
victory which the dear one had achieved, in virtue of her faith, over
all the horrors of her situation. It was when alone that I saw, in its
reality and naked wretchedness, the visitation that I, more than any
other, was doomed to suffer. For days I could scarcely bring myself to
the ca