this I thought reasonable and my duty. I have been educated to believe that one must come out boldly on the Lord's side' in this world, where those who are on Satan's side make no secret of that fact. So, to me it was a necessity to make this public announcement of my purposes. When I had done so my heart, that had fluttered so painfully, became suddenly quiet. The hurricane that had swept over me was past, and I felt so queer, so still." But we are admonished that our limit is reached, and that all the quaint and beautiful thoughts will be found by the reader without our help. Mary, throughout life and quite to the last, had a strange, shrinking fear of death. She never attended a funeral, even when her dearest friend was laid away in the last resting-place, and would not look upon the face of the dead. She loved life and all things beautiful, and the world to her was so pleasant that she wished to linger here. But inscrutable councils ordered an early translation for her. Her death-scene was brief, unexpected, and thrilling. She had said, a few days before, in a conversation with her sister, "Do you know? Frank! it has come to me lately, that if I died I should go right to heaven!" In the morning her symptoms were so favorable that she talked of the morrow with the confidence of one in perfect health; little dreaming that when it dawned she would enter the golden portals of Heaven. Becoming suddenly worse she realized her situation. In a few moments she exclaimed, "Oh, He has come! He has come! He holds me by the hand! He is all mine-oh no, not all! He is every body's, and yet mine!" Lying with her eyes closed she soliloquized thus: "Christ talks to me. He says: 'She tried to be good, but she wandered. But I will forgive her and save her."" "Tell every body to be good!" "I'm getting more faith!" Her time was up; and turning as if to some visible presence, she said, "Now-take me quick-dear God!-take me on this side!" "She closed her eyes wearily. Her breast heaved oncetwice and she was gone." A fitting close to Nineteen Beautiful Years. |