"Who can take Death's portrait true?--Fear shakes the Pencil--Fancy loves excess--Dark ignorance is lavish of Her shades--and these the formidable picture draws: Man forms a death that nature never made; Then on the point of his own fancy falls, And feels a thousand deaths, in fearing one."
None, indeed, return from the grave to tell us what it is; but it is well known, that most of those who have been much troubled in mind all their days, have had the most serene moments at last. That God, who has delivered in six troubles, has always been found faithful in the seventh, _the last_.--Descending into the waters of Jordan, the deep has never swallowed them up: they have found the rock of ages for their feet to stand upon, at the bottom of the brook.
I remember, after a season of long and painful affliction our dear friend was enabled to come up to chapel. I was totally ignorant of her coming: but previous to this, I could find no portion of scripture to speak on but _this_: "And came to deliver them who, all their life-time, were subject to bondage, through fear of death." This was the last sermon she ever heard: and the truths contained in it, she sweetly felt. Her direful complaint increased. Her sufferings were very great indeed. And as all other persons in like sorrows, so she ebbed and flowed in mind; but her God was with her in her final hour.--
"Her final hour brought glory to her God."
In point of gospel principles, she was always at a point: but at times sorely troubled about an interest in Christ, by reason of the cloud that cometh betwixt. But every fresh smile from the Saviour, every sweet word dropped into her mind. Frequently reading the word and precious hymns, the visits of God's dear people and humble prayer relieved her again.
The last visit I paid her, I perceived she was near home. Not being able to speak for a time, I feared she would speak no more: but after waiting a little while, (as a proof of what her mind was fixed upon) she exclaimed, with peculiar solemnity, "By thine agony and bloody sweat, by thy cross and passion, by thy precious death and burial, by thy glorious resurrection and ascension, good Lord deliver me!" Here, on this rock her faith was built in life, and firm in death. A friend asked her if she was happy. After pausing, she said, "Happy, happy! I know that Christ died for sinners, and it is _there_ I am fixed." She requested the twelfth chapter of Isaiah to be read to her. While reading, she said, "How precious!" and begged to hear it again. At the last verse, "Cry out and shout thou inhabitant of Zion," she said, "Do so, do so; for _our_ God is a great God." Soon after this, she repeated, in a very peculiar manner, the whole of Mr. Hart's hymn:
