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Frontispiece. 
 
THE FLOODS, 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER STORIES. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 
 AMEKICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 
 
 1420 CHESTNUT STREET. 
 
Digitized by tine Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hil 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/floodsotherstoriOOamer 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PACE 
 
 The Floods ' 5 
 
 The Last Gift 47 
 
 Poor Sarah 113 
 
 3 
 
 o 
 
THE FLOODS. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Over the upper and more shallow end of 
 a wide lake among the mountains of the Alps, 
 and on which were many islands, a bridge of 
 great length was formed, or rather, we might 
 say, two bridges, each of great length, which 
 met and rested on a little islet toward the 
 middle of the lake, and thus formed one 
 light wooden bridge stretching across all its 
 higher and more mountainous circuit. 
 
 On this islet was a single house, newly 
 raised, in which lived a numerous family: 
 it had a pretty though small garden, on the 
 shelving sides, where all the plants and 
 fruits of that warm country grew; the lake 
 was smooth, and often bright, from the 
 1* 5 
 
THE FLOODS. 
 
 shining of the sun and moon by turns. 
 Even the stars, on clear nights, were not 
 only seen in the sky, but seemed to that 
 happy family to be twinkling on the still 
 waters below, as well as in the heavens 
 above them ; and the light of their own 
 dwelling, when in dark evenings a lamp 
 shone from withm it, looked, to the shep- 
 herds who watched their flocks on the hill- 
 sides, something liKe a star upon the quiet 
 lake. Those who lived on the high moun- 
 
THE FLOODS. I 
 
 tains round them, even the most honoured, 
 the landamann, or chief lord of the canton, 
 and his own messengers, would come to 
 visit these new settlers on the islet, bringing 
 them gifts and welcome news ; for the 
 Chief of those lands was full of kindness, 
 and the new family were beloved. But 
 before they had dwelt there many summers, 
 a great and unlooked-for distress came upon 
 them suddenly. In the long days of ad- 
 vanced spring, when the snows melt and 
 fall in huge heaps and masses from the 
 Alpine hills, a barrier of ice and fallen snow 
 had choked up the narrow pass through 
 which the river that fed this lake was flow- 
 ing. The pent waters spread themselves in 
 the valley above ; but as soon as they had 
 gained weight enough (aided by the fierce 
 shakings of a thunder-storm) to force away 
 the bar of ice, they rushed down into the 
 lake, and a high flood as well as tempesv 
 
8 THE FLOODS. 
 
 followed. When morning dawned, it was 
 seen that the two bridges had been carried 
 quite away, and the still rising flood beat 
 furiously on that pleasant dwelling of the 
 islet, while the little garden beside it was 
 already laid waste. Nor was there any 
 hope of relief. The waters yet were swell- 
 ing, and the storm yet thickening. The 
 high sandy banks of the Uttle island were 
 crumbled and washed away by the torrent, 
 and the house, from the sapping of the very 
 brink on which it stood, and the joint fury 
 of the winds, was every moment ready to 
 fall into ruin. The distress of those who 
 dwelt in it was seen by many from the 
 shores and mountains around. They had 
 rushed from their chambers unclothed, in 
 their terror, and stood before their dwelling, 
 or rather clung to it, in equal danger of 
 being swept 03" by the waves, or buried 
 under falling stones. All pitied them, and 
 
THE FLOODS. 
 
 9 
 
 not a few felt the deepest grief; but for 
 some time not one was found that would 
 attempt to help or save. At length the 
 Chief of the province showed his earnest 
 wish for theii rescue, by promising five 
 hundred pieces of gold to any one who 
 should have skill and courage to guide a 
 boat to the islet and deliver this unhappy 
 family ; but so frightful was the risk, either 
 of being carried down by the rushing waters, 
 or crushed by the failing house, that for a 
 time no one dared attempt it. At last a 
 peasant, moved by the most generous pity, 
 ventured quite alone. He leaped into a 
 boat at a point far above the islet, and plying 
 the oars with all his might till he gained 
 the midst of the laKe, he let her then float 
 swiftly down the foaming current, so as to 
 be di'iven close under the islet's edge. The 
 trembling inmates of the house, which now 
 tottered to its fail, had just time to seize a 
 
10 THE jTLOODS. 
 
 rope thrown out, and rush through the 
 waves into the skiff.* The peasant, already 
 almost worn out by his hard efforts, and by 
 the drenching of the waves, had risked his 
 life unsparingly; and now renewing lis 
 brave toil as if with strength from Heaven 
 he landed all his rescued passengers safely, 
 (notwithstanding the force of the winds, and 
 the tumult of the waters,) farther down 
 upon the shore. A vast crowd was gath- 
 ered, earnestly watching the hazards of this 
 voyage, and now welcomed the kind- 
 hearted boatman and his company with 
 shouts, and with tears of joy. " Brave 
 man," said the lord of those mountains, 
 (holding out a purse,) '' take your well- 
 earned reward." "No," replied the peas- 
 ant, " I have not exposed my life for such 
 a kind of gain : I have enough ; and the joy 
 of saving the unhappy is a large reward. 
 Give the purse to this poor family, who have 
 * See Fror4.tispiece. 
 
THE FLOODS. 11 
 
 lost their all, who are without food, without 
 garments, and without a dwelling In thus 
 saving them from death and supplying their 
 wants, I am richly repaid." My young 
 friends, you may suppose the thankful de- 
 light of those who were thus saved and 
 supplied; the wonder of some, and the 
 pleasure and esteem felt by many, at the 
 good boatman's kindness ; and his own hap- 
 piness, when he looked upon the parents 
 and the young people, and the little ones, 
 to whom he had given as it were both life 
 itself and its new hopes. 
 
 Now, my good children, this story, which 
 (as I told you) in its main facts I believe is 
 true, might be of use, were it only to remind 
 you of the sorrows and dangers to which 
 in this world we are daily liable ; and also 
 of the kind and wonderful ways in which 
 God's goodness often delivers those who 
 are in *he greatest troubles, risks, or perils. 
 
12 THE FLOODS. 
 
 It might teach you besides to admire, and 
 love, and copy works of kindness. But I 
 wish to enforce all these lessons in a higher 
 and more striking manner; and to do so, 
 (as some, even had I not hinted it before, 
 might have guessed to be my purpose,) by 
 using this story, to put you in mind of 
 things far greater ; and to help you thus to 
 view more rightly, and feel more truly the 
 greatest work of kindness that was ever 
 wrought, or that can be thought of by us. 
 
 Has it ever struck you, my young friends, 
 that the islet on the lake, with its house, its 
 garden, and its inmates, may be aptly com- 
 pared to this world in which we dwell, hav- 
 ing around us not indeed a lake of waters, 
 but a vast sea of thinner fluid, of air, or hght, 
 or ether, or mere space; scattered through 
 which, or rather placed in which, we see the 
 stars of heaven like islands " afar off,' 
 more than we can count, in that great and 
 
THE FLOODS. 13 
 
 shoreless deep ? — Were it not for the Bible, 
 the book which God has given " for out 
 learning," we should not at all know how 
 this world (or those stars) began to be : but 
 there we learn that one Great Being made 
 this earth, and " made the stars also." Per- 
 haps our world was made much later than 
 many of the rest ; like a new islet thrown 
 up (as sometimes happens) from the depths 
 of a great lake or sea, ages after other 
 islands and ancient mountains had been 
 formed and fixed.* And when God made 
 this our world, he filled it with living crea- 
 tures, gave our first parents a delightful 
 garden or paradise to dwell in ; " and saw 
 that all was good." Although they had 
 within this garden, called Eden, many 
 created pleasures, those were not the best. 
 They had the higher pleasure of visits from 
 
 • Such an islet was of late years thrown up in the 
 
 Mediterranean Set. 
 2 
 
14 THE FLOODS. 
 
 their Lord. They heard " his voice in the 
 garden," and his love was made known to 
 them. Although there was no bridge from 
 heaven to earth, there was a free way hither, 
 if not hence ; and we doubt not that holy 
 and kind angels, their Lord's joyful messen- 
 gers, were often " ascending and descend- 
 ing," as they afterwards seemed to be in 
 Jacob's dream. As if on a bridge of unseen 
 cords ("cords of /ot-e" they might well be 
 called,) stretched from the bright and rosy 
 mountain tops to the groves of this new 
 isle, those heavenly visitors came swiftly, 
 bringing gifts and messages of love. 
 
 But you have read and heard, and in 
 some measure felf, my children, that sin, 
 aisobedience to their gracious Lord, soon 
 spoiled all that happiness. Nor would this 
 fall, this ruin of our race and of our world, 
 be unfitly spoken of under the image of a 
 flood; for the "beginning of sin" (as Solo- 
 
THE FLOODS. 15 
 
 mon says of one particular sin, the sin ot 
 "strife,") "is as when one letteth out 
 water." A flood, or sea of troubles, may 
 be said to have rolled round our world, as 
 soon as sin "defiled the happy place." 
 The real and overwhelming flood of waters, 
 that "prevailed" many ages after, when 
 "the wickedness of man" had become too 
 "great" to be borne, may itself be viewed 
 as an outward image of that worse and 
 deeper flood of guilt and woe, which sprang 
 from the first sin, which laid waste Eden, 
 and cut off" earth from heaven. Then the 
 happy way by which angels, and the Lord 
 of angels, came continually, to visit and to 
 bless our parents in their mnocence, was, as 
 it were, broken ofl". The " heavens were 
 black," as with the clouds of God's deserv- 
 ed displeasure ; the fierce waves of evil 
 thoughts, desires, and passions, raged over 
 the earth; while lightnings of justice, the 
 
16 THE FLOODS. 
 
 ** flaming sword" of the Judge of all, flashed 
 and ghitered through the darkness. It is 
 true, that there was even then, at the be- 
 ginning of that awful ruin, and still more 
 afterwards, a hope held out to the children 
 of men in their distress, like " a light shin- 
 ing in a dark place." " God, at sundry 
 times and in divers manners," spoke of 
 mercy and of help. It was as if the suffer- 
 ers on the islet had seen, from time to time, 
 lights hoisted on the nearest mainland, and 
 a boat that seemed about to be launched to 
 save them ; and had heard voices which, 
 though not always easy to be understood, 
 yet seemed to speak " good tidings," and to 
 promise succour. Still all this was dark 
 and yet to come ; they were rather "waiting 
 for the consolation" than receiving it. 
 They saw (as Paul tells us, Heb. xi. 13, 
 39, 40) the promise " afar off;" God having 
 provided some "better thing," for which 
 
THE FLOODS. 17 
 
 they anxiously and sadly watched. But 
 at length the Great Messenger and Giver 
 of mercy came. " The Son of God,'^ " the 
 Lord from heaven," appeared, to seek the 
 ruined, and save those who were " ready to 
 be slain." He plunged into the lowest 
 depths of woe, to deliver and bless the 
 guilty and unhappy ; guiding them safely 
 through the floods of sin and death. This 
 is the Saviour, this the deliverance, of which 
 the Bible (and, in particular, the New Tes- 
 tament) tells you; and to which mmisters 
 in sermons, and your teachers, if christians, 
 in the words which they speak to you, or 
 the books of piety which they give you, 
 would lead your youthful minds. 
 
 There are several and very strong reasons 
 (of which I shall remind you more fully in 
 the second part of this address) why we 
 sliould all, both old and young, be more 
 moved and concerned at this great '-'■ gospeV^ 
 
 2* 
 
18 
 
 THE FLOODS. 
 
 story, this story of "glad tidings" and safety 
 for ourselves, (and for whosoever will be- 
 lieve it,) than with the story of the flood 
 among the Alps. And yet there are causes 
 easy to be found, if you will think a little, — 
 why we are not half so much moved, 
 grieved, and alarmed at our greatest danger, 
 nor rejoiced at this greatest deliverance, as 
 we should be if a swift flood were to surprise 
 us, and a kind friend to save us, at the 
 house upon the lake. I shall only name 
 one cause at present ; which is this : that 
 the evil or danger of sin and death does not 
 force itself commonly upon our notice as a 
 sudden thing. Il is rather as if the flood 
 on the lake had happened without wind oi 
 storm ; quietly rising round the shore, and 
 through hidden clefts or crevices in the land, 
 " here a little and there a little," still sap 
 phig and mining the walls of the cottage, 
 without the least rush or noise ; as if, be- 
 
THE FLOODS. 19 
 
 sides, there had lain upon the waters round 
 the islet a thick fog, or heavy mist, so that 
 none could easily see them rise. You will 
 understand, in such a case, how children, 
 and even some grown people, might have 
 forgotten or not believed their danger; and 
 therefore have heard without much feeling 
 that a boat was on the way to save them. 
 Thus it is my young friends, with the floods 
 of sin and death. Except when some great 
 vices or crimes, and the misery which is 
 sure to follow them, are set before us very 
 closely ; or except when God sends plague 
 or cholera to smite down its thousands at 
 a time, — we do not see or hear the rising 
 waves around us. And therefore when a 
 Saviour from sin and death, and a way of 
 happy deliverance, are read or preached 
 of, too many "care for none of these 
 things." But still the floods are round us, 
 though we may forget it. One, and another, 
 
20 THE FLOODS. 
 
 and another, and even from among the 
 youngest, are swept away by the quiet yet 
 mighty wave. It is still as true as it was 
 in the time of Moses, who is said to have 
 written the 90th Psalm, where the words 
 are found, "Thou carriest them away as 
 with a flood : they are as a sleep.'* 
 
 May God give all of us grace to consider, 
 whether the mere stillness of those fearful 
 floods, or whether the mere mists and clouds 
 that may veil them often from our view, 
 can make it wise or safe to forget the al- 
 mighty Saviour, the only Deliverer from 
 these ; or delay to believe and love, to trust 
 and follow Him that came to save us from 
 the power of sin, and " deliver" us from the 
 ^fear of death.'' 
 
PART II. 
 
 Scene afcer tlie Storm. 
 
 You have seen, my young friends, how 
 
 little our story of the peasant boatmah, or 
 
 indeed, any other story of " earthly things,'^ 
 
 can serve rightly to set forth (or be indeed 
 
 compared with) "the love of Christ which 
 
 21 
 
22 THE FLOODS. 
 
 passeth knowledge." I kept to the simple 
 truth (such as I have read it) in all the main 
 points of that story. Had I been wishing 
 to bring it a little nearer, which is all that 
 can be done, to a likeness of the wonderful 
 history of the love of Jesus our Saviour, then 
 I should have altered it much more. I 
 ought to have supposed, that this kindness 
 to the family of the islet was in fact shown 
 not by a peasant, truly such, but by a prince 
 in the disguise of a peasant; by the only 
 Son of the Lord of all those lands, who had 
 owned and come from a palace in some 
 rich valley of the snowy Alps ; but on pur- 
 pose for this work of perilous hardship and 
 tender kindness, had put off the dress of a 
 prince, and disguised himself in that of a 
 poor cottager : that the people of the islet 
 also were not only in distress and danger, 
 but had deserved it; that they had been 
 wicked, thankless, and rebels; that, besides 
 
THE FLOODS 23 
 
 this, the generous prince, humbling himself 
 to serve these unhappy and unworthy ones, 
 wlio loved him not, foresaw that he must 
 most deeply suffer. I must have supposed 
 also, that, even as he foresaw, he really did 
 suffer to the uttermost ; that when he had 
 fulfilled his task of mercy, and brought the 
 unworthy and wretched safe to land, he sank 
 overwhlemed with toils and sufferings, in a 
 swoon like death, upon the shore ; bore for 
 a while more than the pangs of dying, and 
 was raised again to see those whom he had 
 saved, as one himself brought back from the 
 horrors of a watery grave. See how all this, 
 my young friends, especially if it all had 
 been foreseen by him, would heighten your 
 feeling of the .tind-heartedness of the peas- 
 ant prince. But yet all this, and more, if 
 we could add it, would still quite fail to 
 compare with the great love which the 
 scripture teaches us was felt and shown by 
 
24 THE FLOODS. 
 
 Jesus Christ the Son of God, and by that 
 God and Father who " delivered him up foi 
 us all." The Son of God dwelt "in the 
 bosom of the Father.'^ " In the beginning 
 he was with God, and was God:'^ "from 
 everlasting, or ever the earth was:" "while 
 as yet he had not made the earth — ^nor the 
 highest part of the dust of the world." His 
 dwelling was above " the everlasting moun- 
 tains," the "perpetual hills." Yet when 
 he saw a world overflowed with sin and 
 sorrow, and cut off from blessedness, he said, 
 " Lo, I come :" " he humbled himself," un- 
 clothed himself of glory, and being "rich, 
 yet for our sakes became poor ;" nay, though 
 he was " in the form of God," and " thought 
 It not robbery to be equal with God," he 
 " took upon him the form of a servant," and 
 " became obedient unto death." By a love 
 which was stronger than death, he plunged 
 willingly into the depths of lowliness and 
 
THE FL00D3 25 
 
 pain, till all their " waves and billows had 
 gone over" Him ; till his soul had been 
 »< exceeding sorrowful even unto death ;" 
 and then he rose from the grave " because 
 it was not possible that he should be holden 
 of it." Of all this work of kindness, of 
 " loving-kindness of God our Saviour" to- 
 wards mankind, we have several clear ac- 
 counts in the New Testament; the power 
 of it also we have seen, and heard, and read 
 of, in the new and happy lives of christians 
 who have shared in this great salvation, 
 who have passed, as it were, by means of 
 Christ's power and love, " from death unto 
 life ;" who have been brought " through, 
 deep waters," and so " out into a wealthy 
 place :" and have felt safe, and rich, and' 
 happy, because " God has done great things^ 
 for them." 
 
 Children, most of your hearts were some- 
 what touched, T doubt not, bv the story of 
 
 3 
 
26 THE FLOODS. 
 
 the peasant boatman who saved the island 
 family; how much more should we be 
 touched by that of the love which put 
 forth its heavenly strength and gentleness on 
 behalf of all our race ; of those who dwell 
 in "the uttermost parts of the earth," and 
 " the islands of the sea ;" by this Saviour's 
 love, in whom, it was foretold, "shall all 
 families of the earth be blessed." And ^o 
 not forget, my dear children, when you 
 read or hear of this love of God in Chiist 
 Jesus, that you are deeply concerned in it 
 yourselves : that you belong to one of those 
 great tribes, or families of the earth, whom 
 he gave his life to redeem and snatch from 
 ruin. We have told you before, how feebly 
 and poorly any likeness taken from earthly 
 things can paint or image to us that work 
 of heavenly love ; but, if we would come 
 somewhat nearer, we must further suppose, 
 that tie islet (like some which I have seen 
 
THE FLOODS. 27 
 
 on lakes) had several dwellings and familiofl 
 upon it, and that the kind fearless friend of 
 the distressed made several voyages for 
 their rescue. It is true, Christ has not 
 " often" suifered : " once^^ in the latter ages 
 of the world, " in the fulness of time," He 
 came, and gave himself " an offering and a 
 sacrifice, once for all ;" but then the virtue, 
 the power, of that one work of mercy- 
 reaches through all time ; yes, and through 
 the unknown "for ever," when "time shall 
 be no more." It should delight us to think, 
 that though Jesus can no more suffer, and 
 " death hath no more dominion over him," 
 yet he saves still, and will still save, even 
 " to the uttermost," as leally as if for you 
 he was again <to use his own words) " bap- 
 tized" in sadness, and in the pains of death. 
 And when the passing flood of years and 
 ages shall be lost in the boundless deep be- 
 yond, perhaps all his work of delivering 
 
28 THE FLOODS. 
 
 grace to those many families and genera- 
 tions of mankind, shall seem as short as 
 that of the generous prince would have ap- 
 peared, on looking back at the few hours 
 or days of the flood which swelled around 
 the islet; for, with hun who saved his 
 people from the perils and ruin of the fall, 
 " a thousand years are as one day," or " as 
 a watch in the night." 
 
 My dear children, I will tell you what is 
 wanting, in order to our being touched in 
 heart, moved, melted, stirred up to wonder, 
 joy, thankful hope, and active love, by the 
 story of the ''* loving-kindness of God our 
 Saviour." It is this — that we should feel 
 our need of it more ; that we should be 
 deeply alive to our state of danger by na- 
 ture, to the evil of sin, to the nearness of 
 death, to the worth of the soul, to our want 
 of a Saviour, a helper, a guide to heaveu. 
 If we ^ ere standing on the islet of the lake, 
 
THE FLOODS. 29 
 
 and heard and saw the swift and foaming 
 waters rising round us, and our dwelling, 
 which we had thought quite safe, begin- 
 ning to shake at the foundation ; how much 
 should we welcome, and above all perhaps, 
 how much would the little ones welcome 
 the boat which was ploughing the rough 
 waves, and coming towards us with signals 
 of help ! I told you, in the former part of 
 this address, that it is now not so, but rather 
 as if the destroying waters were rising 
 quietly, and by stealth, and as if a darken- 
 ing mist hid the shore and the coming boat, 
 or the boat even when close at hand; so 
 that you could only be told of its coming 
 and its purpose ; but who does not know, 
 that neither flood nor boat would be the less 
 real for not being heard or seen ? 
 
 The youngest child who reads this must 
 also know, that things which are not and 
 even cannot bo seen, are often far more \o 
 
 3* 
 
30 THE FLOODS. 
 
 US than " the things which are seen." We 
 can see the clouds, which are now bright, 
 now gloomy ; but if they change, or all melt 
 quite away, it concerns us little ; whereas, 
 if the air which you breathe (which no one 
 of us has seen or can see) were taken 
 away, you would die in an instant. You 
 moreover know, that "the things which 
 are seen," — the dangers, the deaths, the 
 help, the life — which are seen, (though they 
 may affect us much the more for being so,) 
 are yet the less weighty and real for this ; 
 since they are but for a time, and a little 
 time ; while " the things which are not 
 seen," the soul, and its joys or its sorrows, 
 the Saviour, the heavenly world, these are 
 beyond time, and therefore have an " ex- 
 ceeding and eternal weight." Think of 
 these things; "have these things always 
 in remembrance ;" think of them with 
 prayer, that the eyes of your mind and 
 
THE FLOODS. 31 
 
 heart may be opened, inwardly to discern 
 what is real, and then you will rejoice to 
 welcome a Saviour who comes (in the mes- 
 sages of his word) to invite you into the 
 ark of refuge, that you may be for ever sale 
 and blest ; safe amidst all your passage 
 through the swift waves and storms of time, 
 and safe ere long upon the heavenly shore. 
 You need not fear the tempest, if you be 
 within that ark, that vessel where your 
 Saviour steers, and whic?i bears the banner 
 of his cross. We read, in Mark iv. 35 — 
 41, that when his disciples were with him 
 on the lake, " there arose a great storm oi 
 wind, and the waves l^eat into the ship so 
 that it was now full." But "he said unto 
 the sea. Peace, be still : and the wind 
 ceased." And there were also with him 
 other little ships. These partook of the 
 calm. And when we take this, as we fairly 
 may and ought, for an emblem of the pas- 
 
32 THE FLOODS. 
 
 sage of all christians in their several barks 
 across the sea of life, we must view Him as 
 now, by his Spirit and power, present at 
 the helm in every ship, even in the " little 
 ships." One of our poets has beautifully 
 written, 
 
 " He doth steer, 
 Even when the boat seems most to reel : 
 Storms are the triumph of his art ; 
 Well may he close his eyes, — but not his heart!" 
 
 And here let me remind you, my young 
 friends, of the need there is of what we call 
 FAITH, or belief, in order to receive the un- 
 seen blessing of the grace of Jesus. Some 
 people think we say too much about this; but 
 they do not consider that, without faith or 
 trust in very many cases, even in matters 
 wholly belonging to this life, help could not 
 be received. In the case of the poor family, 
 who were in danger from the flood, you 
 
THE FLOODS. 33 
 
 remember that a rope was thrown out to 
 ttiem from the boat: now it was plainly- 
 needful that they should lay hold of this 
 rope. True, their thus laying hold did not 
 save them ; neither did the rope ; nor the 
 boat ; but the generous boatman alone ; his 
 own arm saved them, and " there was none 
 with him." Still, had it not been for the 
 boat and the rope, and their taking hold 
 of the rope, and even at the moment when 
 it was offered, they could not have been so 
 saved as they were : and thus, my young 
 friends, although Christ the Son of God, is 
 the only Saviour and the whole Saviour, it 
 is needful that you should believe in him, 
 trust him, "lay hold" of his mercy, and 
 " hold it fast," in order to be saved by him. 
 Pray to God to give you sight, and strength, 
 and a heart to do so. What if seme poor 
 man or woman, in the islet on the lake, had 
 been stupid with strong liquours or drugs, 
 
34 THE FLOODS. 
 
 and thus been sunk into a deep and wilful 
 "sleep"* from which they would not, and 
 could not be roused, so as to attend either 
 to the flood or the boat; then, you i^now, 
 they would have justly perished. And such 
 seems the state of many, both old and 
 young, with regard to their souls' good. 
 They have " closed their eyes and hardened 
 their hearts," and they "sleep the sleep of 
 death." May God keep all of us from 
 slumbers such as these. And while fully 
 we hope that some, nay, not a few of you, 
 have entered the ark, the vessel of deliver- 
 ing mercy which can convey you to an 
 endless home, let me remind you that 
 safety, comfort, and peace, through all the 
 passage, and at the end of it, are made to 
 depend on your looking with faith and love 
 to Him who redeems and guides yoa. Yoy 
 
 •Psa xc. 5 
 
THE FLOODS. 35 
 
 are bound to pray earnestly to Him, " Lord 
 let not the water-flood overflow me ; let 
 not the deep swallow me up." " Lord save 
 me, or I perish ;" leave me not to the blasts 
 and currents of temptation. Bring me to 
 the wished-for haven; the "rest that re- 
 maineth for the people of God." 
 
 My young friends, we are warranted, by 
 the pattern of scripture, to use in more than 
 one way the same parable or figure. See 
 John X. 7 — 11. I spoke at first of the small 
 islet on the lake, as a figure of our whole 
 world, which, when compared with some 
 others, is "a very Uttle" world. I might 
 have spoken of it as a figuie of Paradise oi 
 the garden of Eden only : which perhaps 
 itself was really almost an island, or may 
 have contained several islets ; for we read in 
 Genesis, of " four rivers," which '* watered" 
 and may have flowed nearly around it. It 
 
36 THE FLOODS. 
 
 was likewise deluged, and no doubt quite 
 destroyed, as to its beauty, by the flood in 
 the days of Noah. 
 
 I have spoken also lately of that stormy 
 lake, on which Christ our Saviour preserved 
 his disciples ; as shadowing forth the whole 
 of a christian's passage through this unsta- 
 ble, dangerous, restless life. But it may 
 proiit you more, in finishing this address, 
 to think now of the little island and its 
 dwellings as a figure merely of our own 
 state in a fallen world, before we receive 
 Christ's gospel into our hearts : and the 
 flood, which is first crossed, as your " pass- 
 ing"* out of danger, and darkness, and 
 just uneasiness, to a new state of happy 
 thoughts, and desires, aims, or of "good 
 hope through grace ;" and thence, from the 
 time of that change, we may view our 
 whole life afterwards, (whether it please oui 
 
 *1 John iii. 14. 
 
THE FLOODS. 37 
 
 Lord that it be long or short,) as a blessed 
 and hopeful journey, under his command 
 and guidance, who hath saved us from the 
 deep " where there is no standing." 
 
 We have told you that the noble-minded 
 peasant would have no selfish reward. 
 How much less " the Lord of Glory," " the 
 Prince of life !" True, he "endured the cross" 
 " for the joy set before him :" but what was 
 that joy ? It was the joy of saving ; the 
 joy of ministering to the wretched, and ran- 
 soming the prisoners ; the joy of " bearing 
 your griefs, and carrying your sorrows." 
 This has been, and ever shall be his glorious 
 reward. 
 
 We have told you that the peasant boat- 
 man desired the purse of gold to be given 
 at once to those whom he had saved. Not 
 so the "Prince of peace," who stemmed 
 the tide of evil, and sank in the mighty 
 waters of grief, " for us." He has indeed 
 
 4 
 
38 THE FLOODS. 
 
 deserved and won for the believer far more 
 than gold, yea, "than much fine gold;" but 
 that treasure is yet a hope, and " a hope 
 laid up in heaven." He hath won a happy, 
 secure, and glorious " kingdom" above. 
 He is preparing "a place" for those who 
 follow him, even " many mansions in his 
 Father's house :" while yet he is ever with 
 them, in spirit, to guide them to that 
 promised home. Of " silver and gold" he 
 may let you have little or none ; because 
 he knows it is best otherwise. It is as if 
 the kind peasant had been promised some 
 "very fruitful hill" among those Alps, for 
 his reward ; and had said, when his task of 
 pity was done, " Now I will go before them 
 and 'prepare' a dwelling for them there, 
 and, 'will come again and receive them to 
 myself I will clothe and feed them all 
 the way ; I will help them up the rough 
 stepp mountain-path, which must be climb- 
 
THE FLOODS. 39 
 
 ed ; I will support the old, and * gently lead 
 the young :' * I will gather the little ones 
 with my arm and carry them in my bosom ;' 
 only let them not forget, or disobey, oi 
 grieve, or forsake me. And when they 
 shall come one by one, — some in youth, 
 some in childhood, and some in feeble age, 
 — to that other and latest flood, that deep 
 and narrow flood, that chilling and once- 
 fearful flood (fearful still without my help) 
 which all alike must cross ; beneath which 
 all must sink for one dark instant to reach 
 the better land where I shall have them 
 always ' with me ;' even there will I be 
 their guide. My rod shall sound its depths, 
 my stafl" shall uphold them ; my arm shall 
 bear even the least and weakest safely 
 through it." 
 
 My dear children, if the generous peasant 
 had saved you and your best friends from 
 the waves, and had thus engaged to guide 
 
40 THE FLOODS. 
 
 and to guard you each to a new and a far 
 better home, to a princely dwelling and a 
 happy rest with him ; could you have been 
 careless of his deeds, his sufferings, his 
 sayings, his wishes ? Could you have for 
 gotten what he had borne for you, or have 
 made light of what he advised, or bade, or 
 promised ? Could you have grieved him 
 by running back towards the brink of the 
 deep waters which he had lately snatched 
 you from, or wandering out of the narrow 
 path in which he would have you go, 
 towards dangerous pitfalls, or on the very 
 edge of steep rocks where you might fall 
 and perish ? Methinks, if you remembered 
 bis love; if you knew his own painful 
 acquaintance with the trials and hardships 
 of the way ; if you believed his promise of 
 a joyful home, (and how, after such proofs 
 of his love, could you doubt it?) methinks 
 you could not grieve, or provoke, or for 
 
THE FLOODS. 41 
 
 sake, or wound so good a Friend. But it 
 is thus that our Lord and Saviour, our 
 Redeemer, and Friend, by his word and 
 Spirit, invites and promises, and cheers and 
 pleads with each of us. Whatever be our 
 state and temper, whether (as we greatly 
 fear is the case of many) you are lingering 
 and delaying through fear, or doubt, or 
 thoughtlessness of mind, or some worse 
 feeling, to enter the ark of grace, while the 
 floods of sin and sorrow are stealing round 
 you with a quick, though scarcely noticed 
 rise and strength; or whether you have 
 entered on that passage, from death to life, 
 where Jesus holds the helm and lifts the 
 banner, but are still tossed with a tempest ; 
 or whether his love and skill have landed 
 you on the fair strand of a quiet thankful 
 hope : — in any case, in any place, in every 
 state of heart, still he calls on you to bo 
 happy ; still he says to others, " Suffer 
 
 4* 
 
42 THE FLOODS. 
 
 them,'' help them, to " come unto me ;" 
 and to yeurse.ves he says, "Come unto 
 me ;" " seek first the kingdom of God ;" 
 "strive to enter in;" "press towards the 
 mark ;" " beUeve in me ;" " learn of me ; foi 
 I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall 
 find rest unto your souls." 
 
 May you listen to his voice, my children ; 
 may you read his word, may you pray to 
 be taught of God ; may you seek him early, 
 and rejoice for ever in his love and in his 
 promises. I shall not try to paint to you 
 that home of the saved, that " house not 
 made with hands ;" that " garden of God," 
 which is sheltered within the everlasting 
 hills. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard; 
 neither have entered into the heart of man 
 the things which God hath prepared for 
 them that love him." "Now, we see as 
 in a glass darkly, but then face to face. 
 Now we know in pxrt," 'and a very little 
 
7 HE FLOODS. 43 
 
 part,) " but then shall we know 3ven as also 
 we are known." 
 
 I would rather remind you, though not 
 for the purpose of making you sad, that we, 
 your elders, and teachers, and under-guides, 
 must leave you : it may be that some of 
 you will be called away before us ; but this 
 is not so likely. We all, however, before 
 many years are past, must go. But the 
 great Guide and Shepherd of the whole 
 flock, he "will never leave you;" he is 
 leading us all as it were up the mountains 
 together, still by the side of that cold rushing 
 stream. It is nearer than we think, though 
 often unseen and unheard. You scarcely 
 see it, for it runs in a dark valley, and the 
 spring-leaves hide it from you. But we 
 see it, or at least we hear its murmur. And 
 very often (once now and then even from 
 your little company) some one is called 
 aside, and you watch a kind friend, oi 
 
44 THE FLOODS. 
 
 parent, or school-mate, with wonder and 
 grief, led down quickly to that stre-^m. 
 They cross, and you see them no m )re. 
 They are missed in the train. " Part of the 
 host have crossed the flood, and part are 
 crossing now." And we, too, shall go down 
 some, rough path into the shade. We nmst 
 cross, and you will see us for a while no 
 more. It cannot be ; nor should it be ; for 
 the Lord of that land is wise and good, and 
 He forbids. There is a thick veil of vapours 
 always on the other side of that valley: 
 yet the sun shines strongly on them, and to 
 the eye of faith, at times, they seem ready 
 to be scattered. Beyond that dark veil, and 
 that cold stream, lies the home of your 
 heavenly Guide. By and by it will be your 
 turn to cross ; you shall come to us, though 
 we shall not return to you. Higher up the 
 course of the torrent, you also must pass 
 over, and if you forsake aot your graciou? 
 
THE FLOODS. 
 
 45 
 
 Guide and Saviour, there, on the other side, 
 we hope, through God's boundless mercy, 
 soon to meet again. What a meeting wiF. 
 that be! when our heavenly Friend, having 
 brought you all across two floods — the deep 
 broad flood of sin, and the dark narrow 
 flood of death — shall gather you and lead 
 you to his fold above, rejoicing over his re- 
 ward, and sayhig, " Here am I and the 
 cliiidren which were given me !" 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 iT was my lot in the very morning of 
 my life to be set apart, by solemn ordi- 
 nation, to the arduous work and re- 
 sponsible office of the ministry of the 
 Gospel, in a quiet little city in my 
 native State. There, in an humble church 
 edifice, dedicated to the public worship of 
 Jehovah, I led in devotion, and pointed to 
 the Lamb of God, a recently organized as- 
 sembly of Christian people, who, numerically, 
 were, indeed, " a little flock." 
 
 With some ambition, and, 1 trust, more 
 Btror 5 desire to win souls to Christ, 1 ob- 
 
 47 
 
48 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 served witli no little interest every new comer 
 to our small but commodious sanctuary ; 
 and, to my great encouragement, scarcely a 
 Lord's Day rolled its holy light along with- 
 out bringing one or more, who, for the first 
 time, joined with us in the public services to 
 which we were devoted. 
 
 Usually I rose quite early in the morning, 
 and walked for exercise, refreshing air, and 
 calm meditation upon the works of God, 
 into the fields near the town ; or, as was some- 
 times my custom, into the thinly-settled 
 streets, where I often met, at their first stir- 
 rings about home, many of those whose 
 humble but healthful and useful callings re- 
 quired them to begin the day with the ever 
 industrious sun. The early habits and 
 characteristics of many of these people had 
 secured to them valuable peculiarities. Neat- 
 ness, order, and general propriety of conver- 
 sation and conduct happily illustrated the 
 benefits resulting from a just appreciation of 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 49 
 
 the advantages amidst which Divine provi- 
 dence had assigned their position in life. 
 Their dress was made of strong materials, 
 and well became their persons. It was wisely 
 adapted to their laborious callings and com- 
 fortable but limited circumstances. Their 
 health and cheerful countenances bore ample 
 testimony that they were innocent of intem- 
 perance. Their uniform and manifest respect 
 for the feelings of those whom Providence 
 had either elevated above, or humbled be- 
 neath them, in the scale of social life, showed 
 that at their early homes many of them had 
 occupied that happy rank which, while it 
 exempted them from aspiring to lionors too 
 great for them, happily preserved them from 
 dependent vassalage or sycophancy. Indeed, 
 it was evident to all experienced observers 
 that, while these people had from childhood 
 respected the government under whose pro- 
 tection they were reared, they were also 
 early taught to fear God, and work righteous- 
 
50 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 ness. God's law was their rule of life, and 
 his day " the best of all the seven." Such 
 facts in their history and moral characteris- 
 tics gave permanency to all their desires 
 f )r possessing and preserving good habits, 
 and soon secured to them association with 
 some Christian assembly, where they and 
 their little ones might enjoy the care and 
 counsel of some devoted pastor, from whose 
 discourses, with Sunday-schools, and other 
 privileges, they could statedly, from week to 
 week, in the worship of the Lord their God, 
 
 " Hear of heaven, and learn the way." 
 
 After a short acquaintance with my charge, 
 It was my privilege to number among them 
 several of these interesting families — inter- 
 esting to me, in a very considerable degree, 
 inasmuch as they were among the first fruits 
 of my gathering among the people of God 
 in that place. One of those families I shall 
 never forget. From their general appear- 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 61 
 
 ance, and afterward from their own modest, 
 but self-evident narrative, I learned they 
 were from that interesting class of society, 
 many of whom we have met on life's ever 
 varying journey, "who had seen better 
 days." The husband and father of this 
 family was a man of intelligent and muscular 
 look, the result of early education to busi- 
 ness pursuits, which united a good deal of 
 mental with much physical exercise. On 
 each bright Lord's-day morning, he led, 
 leaning on his arm, a young wife, of frail and 
 delicate form, whose soft eye, radiant with 
 all of a mother's tenderness and care, was 
 gently directed toward two cherub children, 
 the offspring of a mutual love, prattling and 
 trotting by their parents' side, as they walked 
 to the house of God, in company, to keep 
 holy day. 
 
 The presence of this little family, at wor- 
 ship, was noticed by many in the congrega- 
 tion, and by myself in particular with un- 
 
52 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 usual interest. As I held forth tlie word of 
 " truth, as it is in Jesus," the mother before 
 me seemed to receive every word I uttered 
 as though she knew and felt that what she 
 heard was, indeed, the message of mercy to 
 sin-stricken souls. The self-applying look 
 and trembling tear told that her heart was 
 the melting receptacle of all she heard, while 
 the tones of her mellow voice, mingling in 
 the holy work of prayer and praise, with her 
 look of affection, so often given to the little 
 ones, who so reverently sat, stood, or knelt 
 by her side, showed that the deep love of the 
 ardent young mother was the emotion enter- 
 ing most essentially into the otherwise spirit- 
 ual considerations which filled her mind in 
 that holy, happy place. In fervency and full 
 assurance, she prayed for herself; but ever 
 adding, " and for the children thou hast given 
 me." 
 
 It soon became evident that this worship- 
 ing young woman had chosen that good 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 53 
 
 paifc, and was probably wanting assurance 
 that it should never be taken from her. Im- 
 pelled by a wish to hear from herself and 
 husband the confession that they were, in 
 truth, the possessors of the one thing needful, 
 I was soon seated with them as one of their 
 welcome friends in their humble but cleanly 
 dwelling. The air of quiet comfort and 
 general good order which prevailed in their 
 apartment soon assured me that this was the 
 abode of wedded and filial love — the little 
 empire over which peace and cheerfulness 
 reigned together, where not a finger or a 
 thought arose to resist the control. I in- 
 voluntarily exclaimed in feeling, " Oh ! that 
 all homes were more like this ;" if they were, 
 fewer husbands and sons would leave these 
 scenes of satisfying joy and attractiveness 
 for the haunts of the intemperate, obscene, 
 and noisy of their own coarser sex ; far less 
 of parental sensibility would be paralyzed 
 into cold indifference to the children of 
 
 5* 
 
54 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 their own firesides ; love's powerful magnet 
 would draw and keep them within the en- 
 chanted circle of filial smiles and conjugal 
 caresses. 
 
 There was a real charm in the domestic 
 scene around me, and the very prattle of the 
 children was music to my ears. The mellow 
 light of departing day, as it rested on the 
 smooth surface of the adjacent river— the 
 river of the Mohawks — gave not a truer pic- 
 ture of the tranquil and beauteous repose of 
 nature than I saw realized in this happy 
 home. High-toned respect for the minis- 
 terial office and character was an almost in- 
 nate principle with these parents, and it 
 shone brightly forth through the pleasurable 
 expressions of friendship and love which 
 played so benignly in their looks, and was 
 so evidently marked in their modest actions. 
 Soon it was perceivable that the chastened 
 spirit of religious inquiry was alive in the 
 bosoms of this youthful couple, and the 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 55 
 
 frank, trembling recital of their sense of 
 spiritual necessities and prospects, as felt by 
 themselves, indicated that, in their hearts, 
 "the fallow ground" was broken up, and the 
 soil made ready to receive the good seed of 
 the kingdom of heaven. Sin, no longer a 
 desire, had become their spiritual burden; a 
 sense of increased responsibility had arisen 
 from their parental relations. Gratitude to 
 Him who had borne them in safety across 
 the ocean to an heritage so rich in temporal 
 and religious blessings ; a desire to be com- 
 panions of those who, through faith and 
 patience, inherit the promises ; a faithful in- 
 vestigation of the evil of their own hearts ; 
 the exceeding sinfulness of sin and the full- 
 ness of the holy Sciiptures; Christ as a 
 Mediator and Redeemer ; the awful realities 
 of eternal things — were topics upon which 
 they conversed with a candor and reserve well 
 befitting themselves, and appropriate to 
 themes so transcendently solemn. 
 
56 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 After several such lieart-searchiDg and 
 heart-disclosing interviews, thej were led to 
 the exercise of a clear and decided faith in 
 the Lord Jesus Christ ; and, at their own 
 voluntary request, a request originating in a 
 conviction of duty and allegiance to Christ, 
 as their King, I enrolled them as candidates 
 for a public confession, in baptism, of their 
 sincere repentance toward God, and faith 
 toward Jesus Christ his Son ; and for visible 
 membership in the church and family of our 
 common Lord, who has said, " If ye love me 
 ye will keep my commandments." 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 )T was indeed a melting time, and few 
 
 wlio were present could withhold their 
 
 tears, when these two hopeful candidates 
 
 for the ordinances and membership of 
 
 the Lord's house gave to the church a 
 
 calm, dispassionate recital of their religious 
 
 experience, and a reason for the hope that 
 
 was ill them, with meekness and fear. It was 
 
 evident to all that they believed in the Lord 
 
 Jesus Christ, and had turned from every false 
 
 and evil way, and were worthy to be welcomed 
 
 through the door iuto the fold, among those 
 
 for whom Christ died. Hence the response 
 
 that was given to their solemn request was, 
 
 " Come in, thou blessed of the Lord ; come, 
 
 go with us ; we will do thee good, for the 
 
 Lord hath spoken good concerning Zion." 
 
 57 
 
58 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 On the followiDg Lord's Day, after morning 
 service, in presence of an attentive and large 
 assembly, who gathered "by the river side, 
 where prayer was wont to be made,'^ it was 
 my solemn privilege to bury these willing 
 disciples with Christ, by baptism, into the 
 name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
 the Holy Ghost. 
 
 In referring to the public dedication of 
 themselves to the service of Christ and his 
 church, in a succeeding interview, they said 
 they regarded it as the most favored hour 
 they had known in all their lives, except that 
 wherein they began to hope for forgiveness 
 of sin and eternal life, through faith in Jesus 
 Christ. Our dear female disciple said that she 
 especially, in coming to the table of her Lord, 
 to commemorate his love, in the ordinance 
 of the Last Supper, was overpoweringly im- 
 pressed with the richness and freeness of the 
 grace of God, as seen in his sending his Son 
 to give his body to be broken, and his blood 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 59 
 
 to be shed for her, and for many, for the re- 
 mission of sins. She said she then joyfully 
 gave herself anew to him, desiring to walk 
 with her husband, as did Zachariah and 
 Elizabeth, in "all the commandments and 
 ordinances of the Lord, blameless," and to 
 train up those who were subject to their care 
 in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. 
 This all hoped who knew her ; but alas! our 
 joy, though great, was mingled with a sub- 
 dued and chastened hesitation ; for we read, 
 in the hectic rose that clustered upon her 
 cheek, encircled with a pallid whiteness, 
 foretokening insidious disease, that this dis- 
 ciple of the lowly Nazarene was soon, too 
 soon, alas I for the good of those who dwelt 
 in the circle of her lovely example, to cease 
 from among us, and become the happy par- 
 ticipant in other scenes, and in holier asso- 
 ciations than those which it had been her 
 privilege here to enjoy. 
 
 Anxious that when this gentle lamb of the 
 
60 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 great Shepherd should cease from being witli 
 the living, she should be fitted to join the 
 celestial fold and enjoy the embraces of her 
 Eedeemer, " who carrieth the lambs in his 
 bosom," I watched for her welfare with un- 
 ceasing attention, and had the indescribable 
 joy of believing that during the few fleeting 
 Lord's Days which she uninterruptedly 
 passed in the sanctuary where our solemn 
 assemblies gathered, 
 
 " She like a tree did thrive, 
 With waters near the root ; 
 Fresh as the leaf her name shall live : 
 Her works were heavenly fruit." 
 
 At each succeeding service upon which 
 she attended, she seemed evidently intent 
 upon learning, not simply what man's wisdom 
 teacheth, but the teachings of the holy Scrip- 
 ture and the Spirit of God, that in all pure- 
 ness of doctrine and pious living she might 
 continue to " grow in grace, and in the know- 
 ledge of her Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ," 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 61 
 
 It is scarcely needful to say that one so ob- 
 servant as she was of all her religions privi- 
 leges gained the object which her warm heart 
 most ardently desired. The bright but fleet- 
 ing hours she passed below were to her 
 enamored heart most precious, because of 
 the frequent opportunities they afforded her 
 of meditating upon him, who had become all 
 her salvation and all her desire, whom there 
 was none like in heaven, and with whom on 
 earth there was none to compare. From the 
 period of this hopeful one's turning to Christ, 
 until the close of her mortal life, her charac- 
 ter was marked by constant attachment to 
 that spiritual worship in which, being per- 
 fected, the happiness of the soul in heaven 
 will consist. With intelligent feeling, she 
 shared in the forms of humble devotion 
 below, hoping to be early prepared for the 
 more exalted service which awaited her 
 above. Panting after God, "asthe hartpant- 
 eth for the water brooks," she sou^^ht and 
 
62 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 found indwelling testimony that she was in- 
 deed born again. 
 
 " A being not our own ? What merit's in that reason 
 Which denies the yielding of her up ?" 
 
 In a little while it was observed by all who 
 knew this frail one's former punctual attend- 
 ance on the means of grace, that her seat in 
 the family pew was vacant on damp or 
 stormy days ; soon she was only able to be 
 out to morning worship on the Lord's Day ; 
 finally, she was with us in the house of God 
 no more. Many perceived, by the solemn 
 appearance of her husband, as he looked on 
 the vacancy by his side, that he despaired of 
 its ever being filled again by its former occu- 
 pant. Impressed with the idea that the hand 
 of affliction was uplifting for a speedy and 
 fatal stroke, I hastened to her dwelling. In 
 the comfortable preparations which her own 
 feeble hands had made in her neat little 
 chamber, there were marks of a superintend- 
 ing mind, expecting soon to remove from this 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 63 
 
 unsatisfying scene, to '' a house not made 
 with hands, eternal in the heavens." She 
 welcomed me to her bedside with an expres- 
 sion of chastened cheerfulness, and I saw 
 beaming through her pale features the ex- 
 pression of the indwelling of unearthly hope, 
 that seemed meekly to say, that while she 
 was happy in the society of her friends, her 
 family, her church, and her pastor, here, she 
 expected to become unspeakably more happy 
 when the pilgrimage of time was ended, and 
 she should be made an inheritor of everlast- 
 ing life. Prudently reserved in uttering her 
 emotions, she but slightly intimated that she 
 believed her sickness was unto death ; that 
 her few remaining sands were falling very 
 fast; and that she confidently yet tremblino;- 
 ly hoped soon to mingle in holier society ana 
 happier scenes — a consummation of realitiea 
 more devoutly to be desired by far than any 
 of those here, which she was so soon to leave 
 behind lier. 
 
64 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 Being informed hy her attentive physician 
 that she must, in all human probability 
 soon die, and confident of the same fact 
 from my own perceptions of the fatal but 
 insidious character of her disease, and con- 
 sidering that my official relation to her, as 
 well as friendly fidelity, demanded the duty, 
 on making her a succeeding visit, I assured 
 her in as mild and feeling a mauDer as I 
 could, that consumption, in its rapid advances, 
 was but too evidently bearing her away 
 from our sight, and soon the places that 
 knew her now would know her no more, 
 forever, and the friends that surrounded her 
 now would miss her from among their number. 
 What I said was no surprise to her; she had 
 so numbered her few days that she had 
 applied her heart unto wisdom. All that 
 she said, in reply to my remark, was, " The 
 Lord's will be done, yet I have strong 
 attractions on earth." 
 
 ** Attractions on earth?" Who 1 ask, baa 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 65 
 
 them not ? Earth is full of beauty ; its hills 
 and valleys, its streams and oceans, its shady 
 groves and sunny skies, all conspire to en- 
 gage our fancy and affect our hearts. Society 
 is full of attractions ; it encircles all our 
 friendships ; it embosoms all our love ; it 
 imparts to us much of our present bliss, and 
 when well chosen and regulated, it educates 
 our sensibilities for real pleasure, and gives a 
 meetness for the society of the best minds 
 and choicest spirits earth affords ; and more 
 than all this, prepares us to join and enjoy 
 the society of the redeemed before the throne 
 of God and the Lamb, where it will be our 
 privilege 
 
 ** To spend a blest eternity, in pleasure and in praise." 
 
 I have already said that this interesting 
 woman was one of the world's unseen hum- 
 ble ones — poor in this world, if poverty is 
 theirs who depend upon daily labor to earn 
 their daily bread. Jesus seems to have an 
 
 6* 
 
66 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 especial love and affection for such, or, at 
 least, more from among such love him than 
 from among those who are more increased 
 in goods. Orphaned by the world though 
 the pious poor seem to be, they are not 
 neglected; they seem rather to share the in- 
 heritance to which the poet alludes, when he 
 says : 
 
 "Zion enjoys lier monarch's love." 
 
 Jehovah Jesus loves his forsaken and com- 
 fortless people. Earthly parents usually love 
 the sick and sorrowing child of their house- 
 hold most ; it occupies most of their care, 
 anxieties, and thoughts. Christ seems to 
 delight in lavishing his deepest sympathy on 
 "him that hath no helper." It is in the 
 hour of sorrow his people have found him 
 most precious ; it is in the wilderness he 
 speaks most comfortingly to them. He 
 gives them now, as he did of old, ''their 
 vineyards from thence." In the places where 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 67 
 
 they were least expected, wells fall of 
 heavenly consolation spring up at their feet. 
 As Jonathan of old, when faint and weary, 
 had his strength revived by the honey he 
 found dropping in the tangled thicket, so 
 the faint and woeworn children of God find 
 honey in the wood, everlasting consolation 
 dropping from the tree of life, in the midst of 
 the thorniest thickets of affliction. 
 
 Comfortless ones, be comforted. What 
 though you had said with Job, " I shall die 
 in my nest," and now find it all stirred up, 
 and no place of rest for your soul, and know 
 not where to light ? Eemember, God often 
 puts a thorn in the nest of such as will not, 
 by other means, be driven to the wing. 
 What things you see no beauty in, when all 
 around you is sunny and bright, he may 
 have laid up in store for you, to be enjoyed 
 in the cloudy and dark day. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 )T would have been more than strange if 
 this young, confiding wife, this affec- 
 tionate and tender mother, could have 
 turned away from all she possessed 
 and loved below, and felt no lingering 
 desire to remain with, and to continue to enjoy 
 the dear objects she here had called her own. 
 What she loved, she loved devotedly. She 
 was leaving three dear little chilren, whom 
 Grod had given her, and who had twined 
 themselves into the very fibres of her sensi- 
 tive heart. As only a mother can know 
 what are the pangs in which her children are 
 given her, so she only can know what are a 
 mother's sorrows when the hour of earthly 
 separation from them at the grave-side 
 
 comes. Oh ! what would such mothers do 
 68 
 
rfriitflttl'l''!fclffi|ii|i;A/i'^ 
 
 The Last Gift. 
 
 Page 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 69 
 
 were it not for his blessed iJiwitilsc^, who 
 says, " As thj days, so shall thy strength 
 be?" 
 
 Our yoang Christian heroine was also about 
 to leave behind her the husband of her youth, 
 who, in his early pride of manhood and 
 buoyancy, led her tremblingly to the altar, 
 where before high heaven their earthly desti- 
 nies were united, as their hearts had become, 
 in bonds that naught but death could dis- 
 solve — bonds making him henceforth in all 
 time to her, as Adam was to Eve, 
 
 " More thaa a brother, and next to God." 
 
 How changed is this present scene from 
 any of those former ones which they had 
 passed through together. She had been a 
 happy bride, blushing in all the freshness 
 and pureness of love's first confessions and 
 declarations. She had become the happy 
 mother of her first-born babe, and then 
 another and another still, so that a three-fold 
 
70 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 cord had been wound tightly around hei 
 heart. Could it be broken asunder, and she 
 not be compelled to feel some of nature's 
 keenest pangs ? But she meekly bowed hei 
 head to the stroke of a kind, a paternal hand, 
 saying, " The cup which my Father hath 
 given me, shall I not drink it ?" Such was 
 literally the submissive exclamation of this 
 dying mother, while around her stood, in 
 painful pensiveness, her beloved children, 
 with features moulded by the soft and deli- 
 cate loveliness which her own nature and 
 kindly influences had imparted and cherished. 
 Could she leave her husband and these, and 
 her humanity make no effort to retain them 
 in her fond embrace ? Some mothers may 
 indeed forget, but she could not ; her heart 
 was of too tender and fond a material ; all 
 whom she loved were hers, with a tenacious- 
 ness not easily described. Her marriage 
 covenant was no refuge for mere convenience ; 
 the vows she then made were no cold assent 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 71 
 
 to mere forms ; she made no barter or ex- 
 change of her person for a pecuniary con- 
 sideration, a tangible, s:)rdid, gross, degrading 
 value received. She had reasoned with the 
 poet: 
 
 ** Can gold buy friendsliip ? Impudence of hope I 
 As well mere man an angel might beget !" 
 
 Hers was the inestimable donation of a heart, 
 marrying from the delicious conviction "that 
 love and love only is the loan for love." 
 
 All the common household ajBfairs of our 
 afflicted friend were arranged at an early 
 period of her illness. Remote relatives and 
 friends had received her final epistle and 
 parting advice. While she had strength to 
 indulge in familiar conversation, she recom- 
 mended all who called upon her to seek first 
 the king^dom of heaven, biddinoj them each a 
 fond adieu. Days and nights rolled heavily 
 by, and those symptoms to which she looked 
 as the coming signals of a speedy departure 
 out of this into a better world, at length one 
 
72 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 by one arrived, but they no sooner came thar. 
 grace was given her with which to meet and 
 greet them, employing the brief period of 
 time they allotted her in doing her last 
 work. 
 
 One quiet evening, as I was visiting her, 
 she called around her bed those nearest and 
 dearest to her on earth, her companions and 
 children, and when the painful effort of giv- 
 ing the last advice and kiss of reciprocated 
 love was over, she sank for a time into a state 
 of quiet exhaustion, from which she in a little 
 time receded into gentle sleep and calm re- 
 pose. Ere one hour had thus passed by, she 
 awoke, and said with a more than placid 
 smile, " The hour of my departure is at hand ; 
 T am about to go unto the Father, where I 
 shall rest, and it will be the next time that I 
 rest, and my rest forever, on the bosom of 
 my Saviour and God." Her weeping but 
 resigned husband alone remained, of all her 
 household treasures, to be advised and em 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 73 
 
 braced for the last time. Thougli the clasp 
 of her attenuated arms was feeble, yet it was 
 long and lovingly that she held him in her 
 heart-riven embrace; and not until nature 
 was exhausted did she cease her fond hold. 
 "While he was carefully composing her wasted 
 form upon the pillow, ere he withdrew his 
 strons: arms from underneath her, he beheld 
 her eye looking calmly into his, with an ex- 
 pression that I have imagined was somewhat 
 like that confidence in the enjoyment of which 
 completed, I now seem to see her unencum- 
 bered spirit reposing on the trustworthiness 
 of the guardian angel who received ner in- 
 ch arge for the heavenly world, as she bidi 
 farewell to this. 
 
 Reaching out from under the drapery of' 
 her death-bed her small, transparent hand,, 
 and placing it in the warm clasp of his, she- 
 smilingly and through tears said, " My dear- 
 husband, you will not grieve for me, as those 
 survivors grieve who have no hope of meet- 
 
74 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 ing their dying friends again." He replied, 
 " I will try not to grieve un submissively ; the 
 Lord helping me, I will not." She added, in 
 a weak, tremulous tone of voice, and with 
 great emotion, " You must not ! No, you 
 must not ! You will not, will you ? 
 
 " * For though we part, 'tis bliss to know 
 "We two shall meet above.' 
 
 You will, I trust, be more than a father to 
 my motherless babes. Oh ! you will ever 
 remember how we have loved each other and 
 them ; how we have prayed and wept and 
 rejoiced over them together, hoping they 
 might early become Christians, and so be 
 made the instruments of blessing to them- 
 selves, to us, and to many others. To your- 
 self, dear husband, and to these lambs, soon 
 to be bereft of me, you will be all you can 
 become, or all you would desire to become, 
 did you know that my disembodied spirit was 
 your attending angel. That you will do all 
 I desire, and more, too, is the confidence of 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 75 
 
 one who, you know, has long loved jou, and 
 next to her Redeemer, loves you even while 
 in the very gates of death." Having this 
 done and said, she sank upon her bed, from 
 the reluctant yielding of the arms that had 
 until now supported her, and seemed with the 
 serenity of an infant to lie, unheedful of the 
 swift passing of her life away. All thought, 
 who were spectators of that Christian triumph, 
 that her work of faith and of love was done, 
 and an aged matron, to whom dying scenes 
 were a long time familiar, said: "Blessed, 
 happy creature, she is dying; but unlike 
 what I fear would be the case with too many 
 of us, dear friends, she evidently has nothing 
 to do now but to die." 
 
 Many of Christ's people are a sorely 
 afflicted and an oft-sorrowing people. Chas- 
 tisement is their badge, and great tribulation 
 is their appointed discipline. When they 
 shall have entered the gates of glory, but 
 not until then, he is represented as wiping 
 
76 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 all tears from their eyes. But, ye weeping 
 ones, be comforted ; your Lord's special 
 mission to this earth, the great errand he 
 came all the way from heaven to earth to 
 fulfill, was, "To bind the broken-hearted." 
 Your trials are meted out by a tender hand. 
 He knows you too well, he loves you too well, 
 to make this world tearless and sorrowless. 
 Were your earthly path all strewed with 
 flowers, and nothing but sunbeams played 
 around your dwellings, it would lead you to 
 forget your nomadic life — forget that you 
 were but a sojourner here. The tent must 
 at times be struck, and much of the mova- 
 ble tabernacle taken down, to enable you to 
 say and to feel, in the spirit of a pilgrim, 
 " I desire a better country." Meantime, 
 while sorrow is your portion, think of Him 
 who says, " I know your sorrows." Angels 
 cannot say this ; they cannot sympathize 
 with you, for trial is a strange word to them ; 
 but One mightier than they can. All he ap- 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 77 
 
 points you and sends to you is in love. 
 There is a provision and condition wrapped 
 up in the very bosom of every affliction, 
 " if need heP Coming from his hands, sor- 
 rows and riches are convertible terms. If 
 Christians are sometimes tempted to murmur 
 at their trials, they will ere long find that 
 they are murmuring at disguised and dis- 
 tinguishing mercies. 
 
 A good old saint, when dying, said to those 
 who were weeping in anxiety around him : 
 " Why do you ask me what things I would 
 most like to cool my lips, or ease me of my 
 pain? I am the Lord's patient; I cannot 
 but like every thing he sends to me." 
 
 My dear reader, any bright, realizing 
 view you may have had of the Saviour's 
 glory and excellency is of the Spirit's im- 
 parting. When in some hour of sorrow you 
 have been led to cleave with p^-eeminent 
 consolation to the thought of the Redeemer's 
 sympathy — his dying, ever-living love; or 
 
78 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 in the hour of death, when you feel the sus- 
 taining power of his " exceeding great and 
 precious promises," what is all this but " the 
 Holy One," "the Comforter," "the Spirit of 
 God," in fulfillment of his blessed office and 
 all gracious promise, "taking the things 
 that be of Christ and showing them unto 
 you," thus enabling you to magnify him in 
 your body, whether it be by life or by death ? 
 As your motto ever should be, " None but 
 Christ," and your ever-increasing aspiration 
 " More of Christ,^'' seek to bear in mind who 
 it is that is qualified to impart the excellency 
 of this knowledge : " The spirit of truth 
 which proceedeth from the Father, he shall 
 testify of me." 
 
CHAPTER lY. 
 
 DARK evening cloud cast its 
 shadows over the earth, as if to hide 
 from common gaze scenes so full of 
 holiness and peace as were now 
 about to transpire. A night and a 
 day had passed, and twilight hours again 
 drew on, since the events we have detailed 
 in the former pages had taken place, and 
 all who saw her wondered that one so ex- 
 ceedingly feeble as she was should linger on 
 so many hours. Soon after the sun went 
 down, she opened her eyes from the quiet 
 repose which she had enjoyed for several 
 successive hours ; and it seemed to some that 
 one so precious as our Christian disciple was, 
 might possibly live a day or two longer. 
 Looking around upon her watchful attend- 
 ants, she feebly said: "I wish to see my 
 
 79 
 
80 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 beloved young pastor once more before 1 
 die ; it is my last desire ; think you he will 
 come to me again, if he is sent for?" I 
 was soon in her chamber, near her wasted 
 form, and in the estimation of all present, it 
 was indeed good to be there ; all felt 
 
 "Privileged beyond the common walks of life, 
 Quite on the verge of heaven." 
 
 When I approached her bedside, I saw a 
 heavenly smile faintly playing upon her 
 lovely features, and as she gave me her 
 diminished hand, I felt that it was as cold as 
 the marble is that now covers her quiet 
 grave. She looked on me. Oh ! I shall never 
 forget that look ! She said : " Do, dear sir, 
 be a sympathizing friend to my widowed 
 husband, and he who took young children 
 in his arms, and blessed them — the great 
 Shepherd and Bishop of souls — will surely 
 own your pastoral instrumentality in pre- 
 paring my bereft lambs for usefulness on 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 81 
 
 eari;li, and for finally entering upon the 
 enjoyment of those celestial scenes to which 
 I feel that I am now so near. You have 
 been to me a kind pastor, a friend in need, 
 and indeed a spiritual guide and comforter, 
 and my last strength in this world is sum- 
 moned to assure you of my sincere gratitude. 
 But, oh ! how much more I have for which 
 to be grateful to my Divine Kedeemer, can 
 never be told. I have one, and only one 
 keepsake yet to dispose of, one token yet to 
 give away ; and I wish to do it in such a 
 manner as shall best evince my continued 
 interest in that cause to which, through 
 grace, I owe my present happiness in my 
 affliction, and my hopes of happiness in the 
 eternal world." 
 
 Having said this much, she swooned, and 
 lay like a babe upon its mother's bosom, 
 giving signs of life only by faint and long- 
 interval breathings. Opening again her eyes, 
 she raised her left hand, and placing it on 
 
82 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 the one resting in mine, she whispering, 
 said : " You see, I have here a gold ring ; ii 
 is my wedding ring ; it was placed on that 
 finger by my husband, when the clergy- 
 man united us in marriage. Husband and I 
 have talked of having it kept for our little 
 daughter, but we have finally concluded to 
 consecrate it to the service of the Lord. I 
 now desire you to take it, with my poor 
 prayers, that it may prove as true a pledge 
 of my love to Christ, and the souls of my 
 fellow-immortals, as it has been of my hus- 
 band's love to me. As it was given to me, 
 < in the name of the Father, and of the Son, 
 and of the Hiily Ghost,' so give I it, through 
 you, to the cause of Christian missions ; and 
 my last prayer is, that it may become the 
 means of giving the blessed Bible to some 
 one at least of those poor Burman mothers 
 for whose spiritual welfare the Judsons, and 
 Wades with others, toiled and suffered so 
 much." 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 83 
 
 Her husband, seeing it was her desire that 
 he, having first given her the ring, should 
 remove it, and give it to me, while tears 
 chased each other rapidly down his manlj 
 cheeks, gently withdrew the golden love- 
 token from her tapering finger, and placed 
 it on one of mine; while doing so, her cold 
 hand lay so confidingly in his, that, as he 
 afterward informed me, it almost overpower- 
 ingly reminded him of its warm reliance 
 there, when he took her in her youthful love- 
 liness and beaut}^, " to be his lawfully wedded 
 wife, to have and to hold till death should 
 them part." 
 
 This touching scene ended, this crowning 
 act of Christian resignation, simplicity, benev- 
 olence, and victory over all that is appalling 
 in death ; this last waking up from almost 
 the sleep of the tomb, to perform an action in 
 which compassion and devotion so holily 
 blended, being over, "the wedding ring" 
 disposed of as her religious generosity die- 
 
84 THE LAST GIFl. 
 
 tated, amidst almost the solemn realities that 
 cluster in the entrance " of the valley of the 
 shadow of death," and she, attenuated and 
 unearthlike as she was, fearing no evil, it 
 seemed as if all, alas ! that could be done, 
 was now done ; and " she had nothing to do 
 but to die." 
 
 As she lay gently panting for a feeble 
 breath, a peace-betokening sigb slightly 
 swelled her bosom and escaped her lips ; her 
 eyelids gradually settled over her once bril- 
 liant visual organs, to open not again on this 
 sin -deformed earth, until they shall have seen 
 the King in his beauty ; a serene, wavy 
 smile illumined her countenance, through 
 which she seemed almost to say : 
 
 "Though the angel has a cold embrace, 
 'Tis mild and soft and sweet." 
 
 The morning sun rose not on this depart- 
 ing scene. While it was barely beginning to 
 tinge with its mellow light the eastern sky 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 85 
 
 the angel kissed her breath away, and gave 
 her weary spirit leave to rest on the bosom 
 of her God. 
 
 My gentle reader, let me ask, Do you look 
 to the future sometimes ; and is there much 
 of fearful uncertainty, and unrevealed mys- 
 tery hanging before it ? Is some, or all of it, 
 premonitory of evil? or is there good in 
 view? Be there what there may, resolve 
 with David, " I will trust and not be afraid." 
 Trust him where you cannot trace him. All 
 the way he would lead you is marked out for 
 you. Dangers will be averted ; bewildering 
 mazes will discover themselves to be inter- 
 laced and interwoven with mercy. "He 
 keepeth the feet of his saints : even the very 
 liairs of their head are all numbered." He 
 leads, sometimes darkly, sometimes sorrow 
 mgly ; most frequently by cross and circui- 
 tous ways, which we ourselves would not 
 have chosen; but always wisely, always ten- 
 derly. With all its mazy windings, and 
 
86 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 abrupt turnings, its unevenness and its rug- 
 gednesS; the believer's is not only a right 
 way, but "the right way," the very best 
 which covenant love and gracious wisdom 
 could select. Jeremy Taylor says : " Noth- 
 ing does so establish the mind, amidst the 
 rollings and turbulence of present things, as 
 doth a look above, and a look beyond them ; 
 above them, to the steady and good Hand by 
 which they are ruled ; and beyond them, to 
 the sweet and beautiful end to which by that 
 Hand they will be brought. 
 
 We often experience that the great Coun- 
 sellor puts clouds and darkness round about 
 him, bidding us follow at his beck through 
 the cloud, promising an eternal and uninter- 
 rupted sunshine on the other side. On that 
 other side, we shall see how every rough 
 blast and howling tempest has been hurrying 
 our barks nearer the desired haven. 
 
 Well may all commit the keeping of their 
 soul into the hands of Jesus, by well-doing 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 87 
 
 as unto a faithful Creator. Jesus gave him- 
 self for you, sinner, and this transcendent 
 pledge of love is the forerunner he gives of 
 every other needed blessing. 
 
 "The bleeding cross has promised all for man : 
 Who gave himself, what good will he withhold?" 
 
 blessed truth ! believing one, your sor- 
 sows are all numbered and borne by the Man 
 of Sorrows ; your tears counted by him who 
 shed first his tears, and then his blood, for 
 you. He will impose no needless burden, 
 nor exact any unnecessary sacrifice. There 
 was not one redundant drop in the bitter cup 
 of his own sufferings; neither will there be 
 Id the cup from whence his believing people 
 are to drink. 
 
 Methinks all who review the simple nar- 
 rative we have thus far written, are prepared 
 to exclaim prayerfully, humbly, repentingly, 
 and earnestly : 
 
 'Life, take thy chance, 
 But, oh ! for such an end." 
 
88 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 Believing and trusting as this dear woman 
 believed, trusted, and was sustained by Jeho- 
 vab Jesus in her final hour, you may con- 
 fidingly say, " Though he slay me, yet will I 
 trust in him I" 
 
 The day, the hour, for the funeral services 
 arrived, and the wasted remains of one so 
 lovely in life, now lovely, even though clad 
 in the appearance and reality of death, were 
 carefully borne by gentle Christian men, and 
 placed in front of the pulpit, in that sanctu- 
 ary where she had so often 
 
 "Heard of lieaven, and learned the way." 
 
 Every pew and aisle was crowded with 
 attentive, solemn people, who were gathered 
 to pay a deserved tribute of respect to the 
 remains of one, whom, while living, they had 
 learned highly to esteem. The word of God 
 was reverently read, and attentively listened 
 to. The solemn hymn was sung. Prayer 
 was devoutly offered, all present seeming to 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 89 
 
 join in the spirit of the devotions, and the 
 unusual solemnity of the occasion. 
 
 As the pastor of this departed one, I had 
 more than a common part to perform on this 
 mournful yet rejoicing occasion. Several 
 weeks before her death, on my paying her a 
 pastoral visit, she spoke to me of her decease, 
 which she said she knew could not be very 
 far off, and desired to know of me if it would 
 be proper for her to select the words of Holy 
 Scripture from which it would be my duty 
 to speak counsel, caution, and comfort to the 
 living. On my assuring her that it would be 
 very agreeable to me for her so to do, she 
 replied she had chosen the words of the Lord 
 Jesus, " Watch, therefore, for ye know not 
 what hour your Lord doth come." 
 
 It was my sad privilege to speak from these 
 words, at this peculiarly solemn funeral ser- 
 vice, with the coffin of a sainted one lying a 
 few feet below my eyes. 
 
 8» 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 ^ jal^^ HERE was much which my heart 
 ^ prompted me to say in my address 
 at the funeral of her who was not 
 any longer to be with us, for God 
 had taken her. I enlarged upon her 
 resigned hope — the sweetness of her disposi- 
 tion as it became tempered and subdued by 
 the word and spirit of God. I related the 
 forecast of mind she evinced in selecting the 
 materials for her funeral attire, and the 
 modest simplicity she insisted upon in its 
 unostentatious preparation; her farewell in- 
 terviews with her friends, husband, children, 
 and pastor ; and above all, her heart's full 
 trust in the merits of the Redeemer. When 
 I related the story of the disposal of the 
 wedding-ring, it seemed as if the entire 
 90 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 91 
 
 audience were melted to tenderness and 
 tears; nor was tlie tribute unacceptable to 
 him in whose courts we were assembled. 
 
 We have seen the infant, like a stricken 
 flower, fall into the grave ; the strong man 
 fiercely breathing out his soul upon the field 
 of battle; the miserable convict standing 
 upon the scaffold, with the curl of indignant 
 but guilty scorn upon his lips ; we may have 
 viewed death in its varied forms of darkness 
 and love, vengeance and hope ; we may with 
 tearless eyes have looked on the cold form of 
 one torn away from our own heart's circle ; 
 but who could look on this youthful wife and 
 mother, fading from earth, from her husband 
 and little ones, from all she loved, and from 
 all who loved her ; who, we ask, that has any 
 heart in his bosom, could see all this passing 
 scene of uncomplaining loveliness, and not 
 feel the very fountain of tears within him 
 broken up ? 
 
 Death is always impressive ; but when a 
 
92 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 much cherished one is passing its portals, to 
 the land of quiet sleepers, the heart feels that 
 some of its rare treasures are passing awaj, 
 and it broods with a sense of almost utter 
 desolation over the lonely reflections, with 
 which memory bids them come up, like 
 spectres from the grave, to haunt our very 
 midnight musings. 
 
 Among the attendants on this funeral 
 occasion, sat a class of young ladies from a 
 female seminary, several of whom had gone 
 on errands of mercy to the deceased during 
 her protracted illness. These had heard from 
 her own lips expressions of her meek sub- 
 mission to the will of him whose she was, 
 and to whose all-sheltering arms she had such 
 strong hopes of being permitted soon to go. 
 Amid this pensive group of young, warm 
 hearts, was one whose earliest love had been 
 abused and trifled with. A talented, and, in 
 some circles, highly admired young man, had 
 won her but to forsake and deceive her. 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 93 
 
 This sweet girl was now sufferiDg all the deep 
 and lonely sorrows which are incident to one 
 in her condition. Hers was a case upon 
 which friends feared evidently to bestow 
 sympathy, lest by so doing they should 
 deepen afresh the wound, and augment her 
 innocent woe. This early stricken one had 
 frequently visited the deceased ; she saw in 
 her the evidences of a decidedly changed 
 heart : and she hung with solemn pleasure on 
 the placid expressions which fell from those 
 pale lips, which reposed in such serenity on 
 the very confines of eternity. In this dying 
 woman, she saw the power of piety displayed, 
 and how adequate it was to fit the immortal 
 spirit to exchange the present for a better 
 world. The portion of her own heavy spirit 
 for months had been only anxiety, mortifica- 
 tion, and secret sorrow. Wealth had pro- 
 fusely supplied all her temporal wants. 
 From her childhood's earliest dawnings, she 
 had not known until lately that frost could 
 
94 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 chill the social atmosphere in whicli the 
 young heart moves. Fashionable friends 
 had courted her society ; she had been ca- 
 ressed by the high in station and" the gifted in 
 intellect. The lofty in well-bred bearing had 
 paid marked devotion, and fondly bowed to 
 her beauty's shrine. The pure and lovely 
 had consecrated the best of their sensibilities 
 in delighting to do her homage. She had 
 the expectation of marriage with one whom 
 she and others thought most suitable, having 
 learning, wealth, and attractive family con- 
 nections. Hope as bright as morning sun- 
 beams — bright as ever beamed on mortal — 
 smiled, and settled for awhile on her fond 
 heart. How changed is she now ! — learning 
 the words of the poet to be more than almost 
 true: 
 
 The friends who in our sunshine live, 
 When winter comes are gone ; 
 
 And they who have but tears to give 
 Must weep those tears alone." 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 95 
 
 During this early stricken one's Tisits to 
 the sick chamber, listening to the Christian 
 experience that was there both spoken and 
 illustrated, she learned to /ee?, what ere this 
 she had too slightly thought, that her heart 
 was evil in its nature, selfish in its affections, 
 vain in its aspirings, and herself a poor sin- 
 ner, in the sight of a just and holy God. 
 
 As I have already said, in my funeral ad- 
 dress I had narrated the principal incidents 
 which her protracted illness had given her 
 occasion to garner up. I had explained par- 
 ticularly the fervent and emotional interest 
 which accompanied the disposal of her earlier 
 love-pledges, in a way which gave indubita- 
 ble evidence that Christ was " all her salva- 
 tion and all her desire." 
 
 We may safely presume that consolation 
 and truth are seldom administered to a pro- 
 miscuous assembly, without awakening in 
 some scarred bosoms chords that vibrate re- 
 sponsive to the themes we disclose. Certain 
 
96 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 it was, that on this occasion a whole hearted 
 reception was given to the message we de- 
 livered and the solemnities that were passing 
 before our eyes. The confessed recipient of 
 consolation was one, however, who of all 
 present I had least expected would be reached 
 by my humble instrumentality; yet, for 
 many and important reasons, I ought to have 
 hoped that she, above all the rest, might be 
 met and blessed. 
 
 The Great Shepherd watches over his 
 flock with care and precision, and adapts his 
 provisions to human and unseen necessities 
 by means unanticipated, even by the most 
 careful and observant of his under-shepherds. 
 We are to sow by all waters, not knowing 
 which shall prosper, whether it shall be this 
 or that. During several previous weeks, this 
 young female had felt her need of the forgive- 
 ness of sin ; but she told me afterward that it 
 was while attending this solemn and yet 
 ploasant funeral that she had been led to 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 97 
 
 Bimple faith in the atoning efficacy of a 
 Saviour's blood, and earnestly to pray that 
 she might be ready to devote herself to the 
 service and glory of Christ while she lived, 
 by trying to do some good to her fellow- 
 mortals. It was then and there that she was 
 drawn to resign all hold on the blighted 
 things of earth, to which she had so long and 
 too fondly clung, and to look up with strong 
 desire to a holier world, and "the rest that 
 remaineth for the people of God." 
 
 These impressions of our young friend 
 were probably the more vivid and perma- 
 nent, in consequence of the natural tenderness 
 of her heart, and careful maternal culture. 
 Besides, she had come up to the house of 
 mourning with a heart blighted, bruised, and 
 sorrow-stricken to such a degree that she 
 would long and sensitively have hesitated to 
 resign herself again to any one, in the exer- 
 cise of merely an earthly love. This, how- 
 ever, in no wise rendered it unsuitable to go 
 
 9 
 
98 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 to him who healeth the broken-hearted. 
 Knowing this, she cheerfully resigned her all 
 to him, whose chosen dwelling is with such 
 as are of " a broken heart, a contrite spirit, 
 and that tremble at his word." 
 
 It cannot be questioned but that the simple 
 storj of the deceased one's Christian expe- 
 rience and dying victory — events seeming 
 charmingly to partake of the nature and 
 spirit of 
 
 *' The short and simple annals of the poor," 
 
 were winged by the heavenly comforter with 
 odors of balm and gales of saving health to 
 her wounded heart. There had been stereo- 
 typed deep in her experience the falsehood 
 of man and the fleeting nature of earth's 
 fairest and most enchanting visions; now 
 they were reimpressed with the Holy Spirit's 
 power. While in the house of the Lord, she 
 heard narrated what she had witnessed to 
 some extent in the sick room — the happy 
 blending of conjugal affection and religious 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 99 
 
 iove ; both were here seen, like angel visitants, 
 pluming an invalid of earth for her flight to 
 immortalitj*s shores. The human treachery 
 to which she had been so sinless but crushed 
 a victim, stood out in bold and painful relief 
 before her mind, while the faithfulness of the 
 Lord Jesus to all who put their trust in him, 
 became her refuge, her support, her consola- 
 tion, her " all in all." 
 
 Concerning the sainted one, Mary thus 
 reasoned: "She has turned peacefully and 
 piously away from the bliss of a well wedded 
 life — the clinging love of the children of her 
 own bosom ; she has successfully resisted all 
 the world's vain attempts to preoccupy her 
 heart, and has deliberately made choice of 
 the religion of Jesus Christ, and has most 
 wonderfully advanced in its sublime atttain- 
 ments and spiritual accomplishments, before 
 she had lived much beyond the term of a 
 single score of years. If she thus changed 
 and was happy, may not I ? — I who have 
 
100 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 trodden the giddy maze of youthful pleasures, 
 and danced the gay round of fashionable 
 frivolities, to find only falsehood in flattery 
 and pretension in praise. In the power and 
 pureness of my first love, I ventured upon a 
 broken reed, which pierced me through and 
 through ; and now, often as I turn to look 
 upon it, it pierces me again, and opens afresh 
 the bleeding wound it made in my lacerated 
 bosom. Oh ! I can submit myself, in humble 
 trust, wholly to the mercy and guidance of 
 my heavenly Father, and relying on his 
 promise, never, never to leave or forsake me, 
 I rest my poor soul on the merits of his Son, 
 Jesus Christ, whose blood cleanseth from all 
 sin, whose favor is life, and whose loving 
 kindness is better than life. This heart of 
 mine, broken upon the world's point before, 
 and now broken afresh for shame that 1 
 loved the forbidden things of the world sc 
 inordinately, this heart, weary and heavy 
 laden, I give to him, promising henceforth 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 101 
 
 botli patiently to work and faithfully to look 
 for his coming, with more ardent desire than 
 a betrothed one looks for the coming of her 
 lover upon the morning of her bridal day. 
 Dear Jesus, the language of my heart and 
 my song shall be : 
 
 " * Now I am thine, entirely thine, 
 Nor shall my purpose move ; 
 Thy hands have loosed my bonds of pain, 
 And bound me with thy love.' " 
 
 Such being the consecration of her heart, 
 IS it not really true "that a flower, when of- 
 fered in the bud, is no mean sacrifice to Him 
 who did not leave her without a Kedeemer ?" 
 
CHAPTER YI. 
 
 UR young friend spoke freely and 
 frequently to me, during our many 
 social interviews succeeding these 
 earnest vows and serious impressions, 
 of wbich she became the willing 
 and rejoicing subject. She told me that 
 her happy thoughts of Christ and of his 
 love, during the funeral services of our de- 
 parted friend and Christian sister, were so 
 absorbing and satisfactory to her soul, that it 
 was with real reluctance she retired from the 
 sanctuary, after the cofSn was removed to its 
 narrow grave. She said she would willingly 
 and gladly have breathed out her own earthly 
 existence, had it been the will of the Lord, 
 within those sacred inclosures, in the delight- 
 102 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 103 
 
 fal exercises of fervid devotion and spiritual 
 praise. 
 
 The few succeeding years of this young 
 lady served to evince the religious depth 
 and inwrought nature of her great change. 
 She really was one of Nature's finest speci- 
 mens of delicate sensibility and modest beauty 
 — the sweetest and most fondly caressed of 
 a very charming circle of choice friends. 
 All who were witnesses of her general his- 
 tory were eager to admit that the evidences 
 seen in her unobtrusive life proved that she 
 was in very spirit and deed a Christian. 
 
 Keligious enjoyments cheered her other- 
 wise drooping spirits, and gave much more 
 vivacity to her deportment than had for some 
 time previously attended her; yet her worldly 
 sadness did not entirely depart from her, for 
 hers, alas ! was, at the best, a somewliat 
 clouded soul. The iron had gone too deep 
 into her sensitive bosom — she had been too 
 sorely and too heavily smitten, to be sud- 
 
104 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 denly or ever in tliis world, entirely healed 
 But all her billowy ajS'ections were sweetly 
 subdued by the triumphings of a heart now 
 lifted on high by animating experiences and 
 immortal hopes. God had created her all 
 attractive^ and fair as she was, she had now 
 given Him her heart, her whole heart, know- 
 ing to whom she intrusted it ; and henceforth 
 her tears fell only in repentance for sin, and 
 her joy was occasioned only by the bright 
 glimpses and rapturous foretastes of her hea- 
 venly iuheritance, which in secret and public 
 interviews, her kind Shepherd condescended 
 often to give her, in order thereby to refresh 
 her on her pilgrim way. 
 
 Attentive and observant friends in a little 
 while foresaw that this young convert to 
 Christ was too frail a flower to remain long 
 upon this chilly world. He who had re- 
 deemed her, had other employment for her 
 than that of scaling the rugged heights of 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 105 
 
 fcliis blighted scene, or buffeting the cold and 
 stormy waves which adversity's sea rolls so 
 heavily over even the most favored of the 
 children of grace. Earlier than is the lot 
 of most of the daughters of Eve, she had 
 felt the chill of disappointment in her spirit, 
 and it was not the will of heaven to suffer its 
 poison long to embitter its fountains. The 
 trunk around which her confiding hopes had 
 clung, was broken ere she had yielded her 
 fragrance or had displayed one half of her 
 girlish charms — yet there was no waste of 
 odor, or of richness, beyond what was the 
 interest of her fond heart to disclose, or her 
 true friends to share. 
 
 "The vase you may ruin, or break as you will, 
 But the scent of the roses will hang round it still." 
 
 The vase only of her earthly excellence 
 was shattered ; and being strewn to atoms, all 
 besides was reserved and precious, as a gift to 
 
106 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 him wno was by these severe but grievous 
 and gradual means about to transplant her 
 
 ** To liis own heavenly garden, where, 
 In richer soil and purer air, 
 He'd give her liberty to shine, 
 And bloom in glories all divine." 
 
 Soon the autumn of this short summer in 
 the life of Mary came, and hung in its dis- 
 tant landscape the chilly frown of winter's 
 frost and snow ; but ere more than a single 
 breath of its rude fierceness reached her, the 
 icy fingers of Death touched lightly the ten- 
 drils by which she was attached below, and 
 celestial breezes, hasting in advance of win- 
 ter's sterner blasts, wafted her purified spirit 
 to the foot of her Saviour's throne in glory. 
 
 Thus passed, did not expire, the spirits of 
 these two young and lovely female disciples 
 of the Lamb of God ; and the union of their 
 hearts with each other and their divine 
 Redeemer, who was their Maker and Husband, 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 107 
 
 was celebrated by the songs of the gathering 
 angels ; and the ring of more than wedded 
 love, by which he pledged them hia grace for- 
 ever, was the passport to the rank in which 
 he exalted them, amidst the bright circles of 
 the celestial court, where all enjoy eternal 
 love. 
 
 In the review of our simple narrative, we 
 are brought to the conclusion that earth 
 can not be man's only abiding place. It can 
 not be that our life is a mere bubble cast up 
 by the ocean of eternity, to float a moment 
 on the wave, and then sink into darkness and 
 nothingness forever. Else why is it that 
 aspirations which leap like angels from the 
 temples of our hearts, are forever, in this 
 mortal life, wandering about unsatisfied and 
 without rest ? Why is it that the rainbow 
 and the cloud come over us with a beauty that 
 is not of earth, and then pass away, leaving 
 us to muse upon their faded loveliness and 
 
108 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 our own disappointed hopes ? Why is it that 
 the stars, which hold their festive loveliness 
 around the midnight throne, are set so far 
 above the grasp of our earth-limited facul- 
 ties, forever mocking us with their unap- 
 proachable glory ? Oh ! why is it that the 
 bright forms of human beauty are presented 
 to our view, and then so suddenly taken 
 away, leaving the thousand streams of our 
 affections to flow back in cold Alpine torrents 
 upon our hearts, but that we are in reality 
 born for a higher destiny than that of this 
 earth, so full of sins, disappointment, and new 
 filled graves? 
 
 Do we not all feel that there must be a 
 realm where the rainbow of promise, in all 
 its bright colors, never fades? where the 
 stars will spread out before us like islands 
 that slumber in the bosom of ocean? and 
 where the beautiful beings that here flee 
 past us like light-visions, will stay in our 
 
THE LAST GIFT. 109 
 
 presence, and return our affections and 
 embraces forever? There is given us, in 
 Christian hope, leave to saj of each of 
 our loved ones departed, "Bright creature 
 of my life's dreams, in that yonder realm 
 I shall see thee again. Even now I enjoy 
 the presence of thy lost, loved image at 
 times, and oh ! how bright is the bliss ! 
 In the mysterious silence of midnight, when 
 the meadow brooklets are dancing in the 
 light of the moon and stars, thine image^ 
 comes floating upon the beam that lingers^ 
 around my pillow, and stands before me in- 
 its pale, dim loveliness, till its own quiet- 
 spirit sinks like a spell from heaven upon' 
 my thoughts, and the grief of years is turned' 
 into long, lingering dreams of blessedness- 
 and peace." 
 
 All this is but a presage of that endless 
 joy and indescribable felicity to which the 
 good shall awake, in the morning of their 
 
 10 
 
110 THE LAST GIFT. 
 
 resurrection, to sleep no more; when this 
 mortal shall put on immortalitj, this corrup- 
 tion put on incorruption, and death shall be 
 swallowed up in victory, and Jesus Christ be 
 all and in all. 
 
 Then, in that upper and better world, be- 
 yond Jordan, the map of time shall be dis- 
 closed, and every little rill of sorrow, every 
 river, will be seen to have been flowing 
 toward heaven ; every rough blast to have 
 been sending the bark nearer that harbor 
 where are safe moorings and sure anchorage 
 forever. In that joy, God himself will par- 
 ticipate with his chosen ones. In the last 
 words of Jesus to his people, when they are 
 standing by the triumphal archway of mercy, 
 ready to enjoy Canaan and glory, their 
 thrones and their crowns, he speaks of their 
 joy as if it were all his own : '' Enter ye into 
 the joy of your Lord." Jesus had this joy 
 in his heart, and his eye on this heavenly 
 
THE LAST GIFT. Ill 
 
 inheritance, when he said; "Let not your 
 heart be troubled. Ye believe in God, believe 
 also in me. In mj Father's house are many 
 mansions ; if it were not so, I would have 
 told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 
 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I 
 will come again and receive you unto myself 
 that where I am, ye may be also." 
 
Page 11?.. 
 
 Poor Sarah. 
 
POOR SARAH: 
 
 THE INDIAN WOMAN. 
 
 It was a chilly morning in the month 
 
 of March, 1814, when I first became 
 
 acquainted with poor Sarah. She called 
 
 to solicit a few crusts, meekly saying 
 
 that she " desired nothing but crumbs — 
 
 they were enough for her poor old body, 
 
 just ready to crumble into dust." I had 
 
 heard of Sarah, a pious Indian woman, 
 
 and was therefore prepared to receive 
 
 her with kindness ; remembering the 
 
 words of my Lord, " Inasmuch as ye 
 
 have done it unto one of the least of 
 10* 113 
 
114 
 
 these my brethren, ye have done it 
 unto me." 
 
 " And how," I said to her, " have } on 
 got along, this long cold winter ?" 
 
 " Misse," she replied, " God better 
 to Sarah than she fear. When winter 
 come on, Sarah was in great doubt : no 
 
 husband, no child here but ; she 
 
 wicked, gone a great deal. What if 
 great snow come? what if fire go out? 
 neighbor great way ofi": what if sick all 
 alone ? what if die ? nobody know it. 
 While I think so in my heart, then I 
 cry : while crying, something speak in 
 my mind, and say, Trust in God, Sarah ; 
 he love his people ; he never leave them ; 
 he never forsake them ; he never for- 
 sake Sarah : he is friend indeed. Go 
 tell Jesus, Sarah ; he love to hear 
 prayer; he often heai Sarah, when she 
 
THE INDIAN WOMAN. 115 
 
 praj. So I wipe my eyes ; don't cry 
 any more ; go out in the bushes, where 
 nobody see, fall down on my old knees, 
 and pray. God gave me great many 
 words; pray great while. God make 
 all my mind peace. When I get up, and 
 go in the house, can't stop praying in 
 my mind. All my heart burn with love 
 to God ; willing to live cold, go hungry, 
 be sick, die all alone, if God be there. 
 He know best; Sarah don't know. So 
 I feel happy, great many days go sing- 
 ing hymn : 
 
 * Now I can trust the Lord forever ; 
 He can clothe, and he can feed: 
 He my rock, and he my Saviour, 
 Jesus is a friend indeed.* *' 
 
 "Well, Sarah, have you been com- 
 fortably supplied?" 
 
116 POOR SARAH; 
 
 "0 yes," she replied, "I never out 
 corn meal once all winter." 
 
 " But how do you cook it, Sarah, so 
 as to make it comfortable food ?" 
 
 " Oh, I make porridge, Misse ; some- 
 times I get out, like to-day, and I go, 
 get some crusts of bread and some salt 
 to put into it ; then it is so nourishing 
 to this poor old body ; but when I can 
 get none, then make it good as I can, 
 and kneel down, pray God to bless it to 
 me ; and I feel as if God feed me, and 
 be so happy here" — laying her hand on 
 her heart. 
 
 Oh, what a lesson, thought I, for my 
 repining heart ! " But do you have no 
 meat, or other necessaries, Sarah ?" 
 
 " Not often, Misse : sometimes I get 
 so hungry for it, I begin to feel wicked; 
 then think how Jesus hungry in the 
 
THE INDIAN WOMAN. 117 
 
 desert. But when Satan tempt him to 
 sin to get food, he would not. So I say, 
 Sarah won't sin to get victuals. I no 
 steal, no eat stolen food, though be 
 hungry ever so long.* Then God give 
 me a small look of himself, his Scni, and 
 his glory. And I think in my heart, 
 they all be mine soon ; then I no suffer 
 hunger any more — my Father's house 
 have many mansions." 
 
 '* Sarah," said I, " you seem to have 
 some knowledge of the Scriptures; can 
 you read ?" 
 
 " I can spell out a little ; I can't read 
 like you white folks : Oh, if I could !'* 
 Here she burst into tears; but, after 
 regaining her composure, she added, 
 " This, Misse, what I want above all 
 
 * This might refer to faod stolen by her wicked 
 daughter. 
 
118 
 
 things, more than victuals or drink. 
 Oh. how often I beg God to teach me to 
 read, and he do teach me some. When 
 I take Bible, kneel down, and pray, he 
 show me great many words, and they 
 be so sweet I want to know a great deal 
 more. Oh, when I get home to heaven, 
 then I know all, no want to read any 
 more." 
 
 In this strain of simple piety, she told 
 me her first interesting story. And 
 when she departed, I felt a stronger 
 evidence of her being a true child of 
 God, than I have acquired of some pro- 
 fessors by a long acquaintance. In one 
 of the many visits she afterwards made 
 me, she gave me in substance the follow- 
 ing account of her conversion. 
 
 She lived until she became a wife and 
 a mother, without hope and without 
 
THE INDIAN WOMAN. 119 
 
 G od in the world ; having been brought 
 up in extreme ignorance. Her husband 
 treated her with great severity. She 
 became dejected and sorrowful, and to 
 use her own simple language, " T go 
 sorrow, sorrow, all day long. When 
 the night come, husband come home 
 angry; beat me so; then I think. Oh, 
 if Sarah had friend ! Sarah no friend. 
 I no want to tell neighbor I got trouble 
 — that only make it worse. So I be 
 quiet, tell nobody, only cry night and 
 day for one good friend. One Sunday, 
 good neighbor come and say, Come, 
 Sarah, go to meeting. So I call my 
 children, tell them stay in the house 
 wliile I go. When got there, minister 
 tell all about Jesus ; how he was born 
 in stable, gi^ suffer all his life, die on 
 great cross, was buried, rise again, and 
 
120 POOR SARAH; 
 
 go up into heaven, so always be sinner's 
 friend. He say, too, if you got trouble, 
 go tell Jesus ; he best friend in sorrow, 
 he bring you out of trouble, he support 
 you, make you willing to suffer. Sc 
 when I go home, think great deal what 
 minister say : think this the friend I 
 want, this the friend I cry for so long. 
 Poor ignorant Sarah never hear so much 
 about Jesus before. Then I try hard to 
 tell Jesus how I want such a friend. 
 But, Oh, my heart so hard, can't feel, 
 can't pray, can't love Jesus, though he 
 so good. This make me sorrov/ more 
 and more. 
 
 "When Sunday come, want to go 
 again. Husband say. No, I beat you if 
 you go. So I wait till he be gone oflf 
 hunting, then shut up children safe, and 
 run to meeting, sit down in the door, 
 
THE INDIAN WOMAN. 121 
 
 hear minister tell how bad my heart is 
 — no love to God, no love to Jesus, no 
 love to pray. So then I see why can't 
 have Jesus for my friend, because got 
 so bad heart : then go praying all the 
 way home, ' Jesus, make my heart 
 better.' When get home, find children 
 safe, feel glad husband no come; only 
 sorrow because my wicked heart, but 
 don't know how to make it better. 
 When I go sleep, then dream I can 
 read good book : dream I read there, 
 Sarah must be horn again; in morn- 
 ing keep thinking what that word 
 mean. When husband go to work, run 
 over t ) my good neighbor, ask her if the 
 Bible say so. Then she read me where 
 that great man go to see Jesus by night, 
 because afraid to go in the daytime. 
 
 Think he just like Sarah. She must go 
 11 
 
122 POOR SARAH; 
 
 in secret to hear about Jesus, else hus- 
 band be angry and beat her. Then feel 
 encouraged in mind ; determined to have 
 Jesus for my friend. So ask neighbor 
 how to get a good heart. She tell me. 
 Give your heart to Jesus ; he will give 
 the Holy Spirit to make it better. Sarah 
 don't know what she mean — never hear 
 about the Hol}^ Spirit. She say I must 
 go to meeting next Sunday ; she will 
 tell minister about me ; he tell me what 
 to do. So Sarah go to hear how she 
 must be born again. Minister say, You 
 must go and fall down before God ; tell 
 him you are grieved because you sin; 
 tell him you want a better heart ; ask 
 him, for Christ Jesus' sake, give the 
 Holy Spirit, to make your heart new. 
 Then Sarah go home light, because she 
 know the way. 
 
THE INDIAN WOx\rAN. 123 
 
 "When I get home, my husband 
 angry because I go to meeting, and 
 don't stay at home and work. I say, 
 Sarah can't work any more on Sunday, 
 because it is sin against God. I rather 
 work nights, when moon shine. So he 
 drive me hoe corn that night, he so 
 angry. I want to pray great deal, so 
 go out, hoe corn, pray all the time. 
 When come in the house, husband sleep. 
 Then I kneel down, and tell Jesus take 
 my bad heart — can't bear my bad heart, 
 pray give me the Holy Spirit, make my 
 heart soft, make it all new. Go meet- 
 ing all Sundays; if husband beat me, 
 never mind it; go hear good neighbor 
 read Bible every day. 
 
 " So, after a great while, God make 
 all my mind peace. I love Jesus ; love 
 pray to him, love tell him all my sor- 
 
124 POOR SARAH; 
 
 rows : he take away my sorrow, make 
 all my soul joy; only sorry because 
 can't read the Bible, and learn how to 
 be like Jesus ; want to be like his dear 
 people the Bible tell of. So I make a 
 great many brooms, and go get a Bible 
 for them. When I come home, husband 
 call me a fool for it ; say he burn it up. 
 Then I go hide it; when he is gone, 
 then I get it, kiss it many times, be- 
 cause it Jesus' good word. Then I go 
 ask neighbor if she learn me to read. 
 She say, Yes. Then I go many days 
 to learn my letters, pray God all the 
 while to help me to read his holy word. 
 So, Misse, I learn to read hymn ; learn 
 to spell out many good words in the 
 Bible. So every day I take my Bible, 
 tell my children that be God's word; 
 tell them how Jesus died on cross for 
 
THE INDIAN WOMAN. 125 
 
 sinner ; then make them all kneel down; 
 I pray God give them new hearts ; pray 
 for husband too, he so wicked. Oh, how^ I 
 sorry for him ; fear his soul must go in 
 the burning flame." 
 
 " Sarah," said I, " how long did your 
 husband live ?" 
 
 " he live great many year." 
 
 "Did he repent and become a good 
 man : 
 
 " No, no, Misse, I afraid not ; he sin 
 more and more. When he get sick, I 
 in great trouble for him ; talk every day 
 to him, but he no hear Sarah. I say, 
 how can you bear to go in the burning 
 fire, where worm never die, where fire 
 never go out? At last he get angry, 
 bid me hold my tongue. So I don't say 
 any more, only mourn over him every 
 day before God. Afterward, when he 
 
126 POOR SARAH; 
 
 was drowned, my heart say , Father, thy 
 will be done — Jesus do all things well. 
 Sarah can't help him now, he be in 
 God's hands ; all is well. So then give 
 my heart all away to Jesus ; tell him I 
 be all his ; serve him all my life ; beg 
 the Holy Spirit to come and fill all my 
 heart, make it all clean and white like 
 Jesus. Pray God to help me learn 
 more of his sweet word. And now, 
 Sarah live a poor Indian widow great 
 many long years, and always find Jesus 
 friend, husband, brother, all. He make 
 me willing to sufier; willing to live 
 great while in this bad world, if he see 
 best ; but above all, he give me a great 
 good hope of glory when I die. So now 
 I wait patient till my change come." 
 
 She used to bring bags of sand into 
 the village, to sell for food. Sometimes 
 
THE INDIAN WOMAN. 127 
 
 she brought grapes and other kinds of 
 fruit. But as she walked by the way 
 she took little notice of any thing ex- 
 cept children, to whom she sometimes 
 gave an affectionate word of exhortation 
 to be good, to pray, to learn to read God's 
 good word, etc., accompanied with a 
 bunch of grapes or an apple. Thus she 
 engaged the affections of many a little 
 heart. She seemed absorbed in medi- 
 tation as she walked, and was often seen 
 with her hands uplifted in the attitude 
 of prayer. One day I asked her how 
 she could bring such heavy loads, old as 
 8he was, and feeble. 
 
 " 0," said she, " when I get a great 
 load, then I go and pray God to give me 
 strength to carry it. So I go on, think- 
 ing all the way how good God is, to 
 give his only Son to die for poor sinner ; 
 
128 POOR SARAH; 
 
 think how good Jesus is, to suffer so 
 much for such poor creature ; how good 
 the Holy Spirit was, to come into my 
 bad heart, and make it all new : so 
 these sweet thoughts make my mind so 
 full of joy I never think how heavy 
 sand be on my old back." 
 
 One day she passed with a bag of 
 sand. On her return she called on me; 
 
 I inquired how much Mrs. gave 
 
 her for the sand. She was unwilling to 
 tell, and I feared she was unwilling lest 
 I should withhold my accustomed mite, 
 on account of what she had already 
 received ; I therefore insisted she should 
 let me see. She at length consented, 
 and I drew from the bag a bone, not 
 containing meat enough for half a meal. 
 Is this all ? Did that rich woman turn 
 
THE INDIAN WOMAN. 129 
 
 you oflf SO? How cruel, how hard- 
 hearted, I exclaimed ! 
 
 " Misse," she replied, " this make me 
 afraid to let you see it ; I afraid you 
 would be angry ; I hope she have bigger 
 heart next time, only she forget now, 
 that Jesus promise to pay her all she 
 give Sarah. Don't be angry, I pray 
 God to give her a great deal bigger 
 heart." 
 
 The conviction, that she possessed in 
 an eminent degree the s|)irit of Him, 
 who said, " bless them that curse you," 
 and prayed for his murderers, rushed 
 upon my mind with energy, and I could 
 compare myself in some measure to 
 those who said, ^' shall we command fire 
 to come down from heaven?" &c. I 
 think I never felt deeper self-abhorrence 
 and abasement ; I left her for a moment, 
 
130 POOR SARAH; 
 
 and from the few comforts I possessed, 
 gave her a considerable portion. She 
 received them with the most visible 
 marks of gratitude — arose to depart, 
 went to the door, and then turned, look- 
 ing me in the face with evident concern. 
 
 " Sarah," said I, " what would you 
 have?" (supposing she wanted some- 
 thing I had not thought of, and feared 
 to ask.) 
 
 " my good Misse," said she, 
 " nothing, only afraid your big heart 
 feel some proud, because you give more 
 for nothing, than Misse for sand." 
 
 This faithfulness, added to her piety 
 aiid gratitude, completed the swell of 
 feeling already rising in my soul, and 
 bursting into tears, I said, Sarah, 
 when you pr?a.y that Mrs. may have 
 
THE INDIAN WOMAN. 131 
 
 a bigger heart, don't forget to pray that 
 I may have an humbler one. 
 
 " I will Misse, I will," she exclaimed 
 with joy, and hastened on her way. 
 
 Another excellence in her character 
 was, that she loved the house of God ; 
 and often appeared there, when, from 
 bad weather or other causes, the seats 
 of others were empty. She was always 
 early, ever clean, and whole in her 
 apparel, though it was sometimes almost 
 as much diversified with patches as the 
 coat of the Shepherd of Salisbury Plain. 
 She was very old, and quite feeble, yet 
 she generally stood, during public ser- 
 vice, with eyes riveted on the preacher. 
 
 I have sometimes overtaken her on 
 the steps, after service, and said to her 
 " Have you had a good day, Sarah ?'* 
 
132 POOR SARAH; 
 
 " All good, sweeter than honey," she 
 would reply. 
 
 In the spring of 1817 it was observed 
 by her friends that she did not appear 
 at meeting, as usual, and one of her 
 female benefactors asked her the reason 5 
 when she, with streaming eyes, told her, 
 that her clothes had become so old and 
 ragged that she could not come with 
 comfort or decency; but said she had 
 been praying to God to provide for her in 
 this respect, a great while, and telling 
 Jesus how much she wanted to go to 
 his house of prayer, and expressed a 
 strong desire to be resigned and submis- 
 sive to his will. This was soon com- 
 municated to a few friends, who promptly 
 obeyed the call of Providence, and soon 
 furnished this suffering member of Christ 
 with a very decent suit of apparel. 
 
THE INDIAN WOMAN. 133 
 
 This present almost overpowered her 
 grateful heart. She received it as from 
 the hand of her heavenlv Father and 
 kind Redeemer, in answer to her special 
 prayer. But this did not in the least 
 diminish her gratitude to her benefactor ; 
 she said she would go on and tell Jesus 
 how good his dear people were to this 
 poor old creature, and pray her good 
 Father to give them a great reward. 
 
 Two of the garments given her she 
 received with every mark of joy. On 
 being asked why she set so high a value 
 on these, she replied, " Oh, these just 
 what I pray for so long, so to lay out 
 my poor old body clean and decent, like 
 God's dear white people, when I die." 
 These she requested a friend to keep 
 for her, fearing to carry them home, 
 lest they should be taken from her. 
 
 12 
 
134 
 
 She was, however, persuaded to wear 
 one of them to meeting, upon condition 
 that if she injured that another should 
 be provided; the other was preserved 
 by her friend, and made use of at her 
 death. An aged female, who gave her 
 one of these garments, says, she never 
 saw any body so grateful : " Sarah said 
 she could not pay me. She wondered 
 why people were so kind to such a poor 
 old creature. She hoped God would 
 reward me and all of them." 
 
 The last visit I had from her was in 
 the summer of 1817. She had attended 
 a funeral, and called on me as she 
 returned. She complained of great 
 weariness, and pain in her limbs, and 
 showed me her feet, which were much 
 swollen. I inquired the cause : " Oh," 
 said she, with a serene smile, "death 
 
THE INDIAN WOMAN. 135 
 
 comes creeping on : I think, in the 
 graveyard to-day, Sarah must lie hero 
 soon." 
 
 " Well, are you willing to die ? Do 
 you feel ready ?" 
 
 " I think, if my bad heart tells true, 
 I am willing to do just as Jesus bids 
 me; if he say, You must die, then 
 I glad to go and be with him; If he 
 say. Live, and suffer a great deal 
 more, I willing. I think Jesus knows 
 best. Sometimes I get such look of 
 heaven, I long to go and see Jesus ; see 
 the happy angels, see the holy saints; 
 to throw away my bad heart, lay down 
 my old body, and go where I no sin. 
 Then I tell Jesus : he say, Sarah, I pre- 
 pare a place for you, tlien I come take 
 you to myself. Then I be quite like a 
 child, don't want to so till he call me." 
 
136 POOR SARAH; 
 
 Much more she said upon this interest- 
 ing subject, which indicated a soul ripe 
 for heavenly glories. When we parted, 
 I thought it very doubtful whether we 
 ever met again below. In the course 
 of three weeks from this time, I heard 
 that Sarah was removed to a better 
 world. 
 
 The life of Poor Sarah closed, but the 
 narrative of her conversion has been 
 greatly blessed to souls. More than 
 three hundred thousand copies of the 
 brief account of her life have been cir- 
 culated in the form of a cheap tract. 
 
 At a meeting of a Tract Society in 
 Philadelphia, the following facts were 
 related by Thomas Bradford, Esq., in a 
 public address : " A lady who is engaged 
 as a teacher in a colored Sabbath School 
 in this city, some months since distrib- 
 
THE INDIAN WOMAN. 137 
 
 uted among the children her usual sup- 
 ply of tracts. One of these, Poor Sarah, 
 was conveyed, by the providence of God, 
 to a poor, aged black woman, and, as 
 she could not read, it was read to her 
 by the child. The moving contents of 
 this precious tract, affected her heart, 
 and such was her eagerness to treasure 
 up its interesting incidents in her mem- 
 ory, and to appropriate its divine conso- 
 lations, that she was wont to crave often, 
 of such as were instructed, the favor of 
 reading it to her. It became her con- 
 stant companion ; and once, in particular, 
 while journeying in one of our Delaware 
 steamboats, she was known to beg a 
 similar favor of the captain, which was 
 readily granted. On her return to the 
 city, her little book, the herald of the 
 mercy and grace which she then en- 
 
 12* 
 
138 POOR SARAH; 
 
 joyed, was still with her. A short time 
 ago, she was visited by sickness, which 
 soon proved to be a ^ sickness unto death ;' 
 but she had received the good seed in 
 her heart, and it had sprung up, bearing 
 its fruits, faith, hope, patience and char- 
 ity, for her support in the hour when 
 heart and flesh were failing her. For 
 this seed and these good fruits she de- 
 clared herself to be instrumentally in- 
 debted to the story of the poor Indian 
 Sarah. She descended into the dark 
 valley with songs of triumph." 
 
 Reader, are you following the Saviour 
 with the humble zeal of Poor Sarah ? 
 The narratives of the '' Dairyman's 
 Daughter," "Poor Joseph," "Amelia 
 Gale," " Poor Sarah, the Indian woman," 
 and many others, show that God " hath 
 chosen the fooHsh things of the world, 
 
THE INDIAN WOMAN. 139 
 
 to confound the wise; and God hath 
 chosen the weak things of the world, to 
 confound the things which are mighty ; 
 and base things of the world, and things 
 which are despised, hath God chosen, 
 yea, and things which are not, to bring 
 to nought things that are ; that no flesh 
 should glory in his presence." In your 
 effort to do good, be not discouraged by 
 poverty or want of education, for it is 
 not " by might nor by power," but by 
 the Spirit of God, that success is to be 
 secured. Let the motto of a female 
 missionary now laboring for the salva- 
 tion of the Karens, be adopted by each 
 pious reader, — " The soul, the soul, the 
 IMMORTAL SOUL !" Let no day pass with- 
 out an effort to save souls. Let no letter 
 of friendship be written without aiming 
 to pi'omote the spiritual welfare of your 
 
140 POOR SARAH 
 
 friends and to honor Christ. Then if it 
 can be said of you as of Poor Sarah, 
 " She hath done what she could," it may 
 also be true that as Abel, " being dead, 
 yet speaketh," your influence may be 
 felt ages hence. 
 
 Our prayers should be offered to God 
 that the gospel of Jesus Christ may be 
 carried to all the Indians in our land, 
 thousands of whom have never seen the 
 Bible nor heard of a precious Saviour 
 who died to save sinners. 
 
 We should also regard it as a great 
 privilege to aid the cause of missions, at 
 home and abroad. Let us ever " remem- 
 ber the words of the Lord Jesus, how he 
 said, It is more blessed to give than to 
 receive." " The Lord loveth a cheerful 
 giver." Every Sunday School should 
 have a Juvenile Missionary Society, so 
 
THE INDIAN WOMAN. 141 
 
 that the habit of giving may be formed 
 in childhood. In Burmah the heathen 
 mothers take their little children, with 
 oflferings in their hands, teaching them 
 to leave their gifts before the idols oi 
 wood and stone. And shall not we, 
 who have the light of the glorious gos- 
 pel shining so brightly, teach our chil- 
 dren to carry to the house of God their 
 gifts for the spread of the gospel ? 
 
 But it may be, that the reader of this 
 narrative is still " without hope and 
 without God." Pause before you leave 
 the spot where you are seated. You 
 will meet Poor Sarah in the day of judg- 
 ment. If she soujiht the Saviour, though 
 beaten by a cruel husband and living in 
 the midst of the deepest poverty, can 
 you have any excuse, in the midst of 
 your privileges, for neglectmg the salva- 
 
142 POOR SARAH. 
 
 tion of your soul? "How shall we 
 escape if we neglect so great salvation ?" 
 "If the righteous scarcely be saved, 
 where shall the ungodly and the sinner 
 appear?" As you close this volume, 
 kneel before God, and like the publican 
 ciy, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" 
 " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and 
 thou shalt be saved." 
 
 " Let not conscience make you linger, 
 Nor of fitness fondly dream ; 
 AU the fitness he requireth, 
 Is to feel your need of him. ' 
 
^s^^^p^