About a year after her settlement in Devon, she became a decided invalid, and except in the year 1827, she never moved beyond the garden, and only two or three times ventured into the outward air. For the last two years she was entirely confined to her room, and unable to be dressed. During the whole of that period she was watched over by her mother, and surrounded by books. Her beloved Bible was always under her pillow, the first thing in her hand in the morning and the last at night. For a short time before her death, the enemy was permitted to harass her soul, and her lively apprehensions of the gospel were occasionally obscured. Her bodily sufferings were most severe, arising from a complication of diseases. Life terminated at last by a rapid mortification in one of her legs. The last words she was heard to utter, were: “I am come into deep waters; O God, my rock. Hold Thou me up, and I shall be safe.” The next morning, Friday, December 10th, 1830, without a sign or struggle, she entered into her eternal rest. Her lungs, which had been supposed to be sound, were discovered after death to have been fatally diseased. Her heart also was found to be enlarged.
Thus upheld by the good hope of the gospel, this blessed sufferer, ransomed sinner, and victorious believer, fell asleep in the arms of her Saviour and her God. With hearts clad in the habiliments of sorrow, relatives and friends followed all that could die of Miss Graham to the lonely graveyard. The Christian has always a garden around the sepulchre. To such death is not the penalty of sin, but the gracious summons of the Saviour—the introduction to that world where the pure earth, unsmitten by a curse, shall never be broken for a grave.
From her own history we learn that Miss Graham was converted to God when only seven years old. Yet it must be admitted that instability marked her early course in the ways of religion. The general tone, however, of her spiritual feeling manifested the habitual operation of a high measure of Divine influence; while her occasional depressions seem not to have sunk her below the ordinary level, and were doubtless connected with those exercises of humiliation described in her correspondence which will find an echo in the hearts of all generous Christians. A deep sense of her own unworthiness was a prominent feature of her life. In all her natural loveliness, with all her gentle and amiable attractions, she lay down before God profoundly in the dust, and poured out from the very bottom of her heart the often repeated cry, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” The Holy Spirit had taught her, that the Searcher of hearts sees guilt in the fairest characters; and that to be saved she must be Divinely renewed, and to see the kingdom of God she must be born again. While Miss Graham was, in the estimation of her parents and of all the members of the household, all that their hearts could wish, she felt her need of an entire and implicit dependence on Jesus Christ for salvation. She was also deeply anxious to bring others to the Saviour, that His Cross might be covered with trophies, and His crown blaze with jewels. If she heard of any that were awakened to a sense of their state and condition in the sight of God, it was always with great delight. Often has she been known on such occasions to shed tears of joy. While her love for the ministers and ordinances of God are worthy of special remark, we must not forget to mention her love to the brethren—these are conscious and unequivocal marks of vital Christianity.