Stepping Heavenward Part 29

"Don't go," she cried. "I do not dare to be alone. Oh, what a terrible, terrible thing it is to die! To leave this bright, beautiful world, and be nailed in a coffin and buried up in a cold, dark grave.

"Nay," I said, "to leave this poor sick body there, and to fly to a world ten thousand times brighter, more beautiful than this."

"I had just got to feeling nearly well," she said, "and I had everything I wanted, and Charley was quite good to me, and I kept my little girls looking like fairies, just from fairy-land. Everybody said they wore the most picturesque costumes when they were dressed according to my taste. And I have got to go and leave them, and Charley will be marrying somebody else, and saying to her all the nice things he has said to me.

"I really must go now," I said. "You are wearing yourself all out."

"I declare you are crying," she exclaimed. "You do pity me after all."

"Indeed I do," I said, and came away, heartsick.

Ernest says there is nothing I can do for her now but to pray for her, since she does not really believe herself in danger, and has a vague feeling that if she can once convince him how much she wants to live, he will use some vigorous measures to restore her Martha is to watch with her to-night. Ernest will not let me.

JAN. 18, 1843.-Our wedding-day has pa.s.sed un.o.bserved. Amelia's suffering condition absorbs us all. Martha spends much time with her, and prepares almost all the food she eats.

JAN. 20.-I have seen poor Amelia once more, and perhaps for the last time. She has failed rapidly of late, and Ernest says may drop away at almost any time.

When I went in she took me by the hand, and with great difficulty, and at intervals said something like this:

"I have made up my mind to it, and I know it must come. I want to see Dr. Cabot. Do you think he would be willing to visit me after my neglecting him so?"

"I am sure he would," I cried.

"I want to ask him if he thinks I was a Christian at that time-you know when. If I was, then I need not be so afraid to die."

"But, dear Amelia, what he thinks is very little to the purpose. The question is not whether you ever gave yourself to G.o.d, but whether you are His now. But I ought not to talk to you. Dr. Cabot will know just what to say."

"No, but I want to know what you thought about it."

I felt distressed, as I looked at her wasted dying figure, to be called on to help decide such a question. But I knew what I ought to say, and said it:

"Don't look back to the past; it is useless. Give yourself to Christ now."

She shook her head.

"I don't know how," she said. "Oh, Katy, pray to G.o.d to let me live long enough to get ready to die. I have led a worldly life. I shudder at the bare thought of dying; I must have time."

"Don't wait for time," I said, with tears, "get ready now, this minute. A thousand years would not make you more fit to die."

So I came away, weary and heavy- laden, and on the way home stopped to tell Dr. Cabot all about it, and by this time he is with her.

"MARCH 1.-Poor Amelia's short race on earth is over. Dr. Cabot saw her every few days and says he hopes she did depart in Christian faith, though without Christian joy. I have not seen her since that last interview. That excited me so that Ernest would not let me go again.

Martha has been there nearly the whole time for three or four weeks, and I really think it has done her good. She seems less absorbed in mere outside things, and more lenient toward me and my failings.

I do not know what is to become of those mother little girls. I wish I could take them into my own home, but, of course, that is not even to be thought at this juncture. Ernest says their father seemed nearly distracted when Amelia died, and that his uncle is going to send him off to Europe immediately.

I have been talking with Ernest about Amelia.

"What do you think," I asked, "about her last days on earth? Was there really any preparation for death?

"These scenes are very painful," he returned. "Of course there is but one real preparation for Christian dying, and that is Christian living."

"But the sick-room often does what a prosperous life never did!"

"Not often. Sick persons delude themselves, or are deluded by their friends; they do not believe they are really about to die. Besides, they are bewildered and exhausted by disease, and what mental strength they have is occupied with studying symptoms, watching for the doctor, and the like. I do not now recall a single instance where a worldly Christian died a happy, joyful death, in all my practice."

"Well, in one sense it makes no difference whether they die happily or not. The question is do they die in the Lord?"

"It may make no vital difference to them, but we must not forget that G.o.d is honored or dishonored by the way a Christian dies, as well as by the way in which he lives. There is great significance in the description given in the Bible of the death by which John should 'Glorify G.o.d'; to my mind it that to die well is to live well."

"But how many thousands die suddenly, or of such exhausting disease that they cannot honor G.o.d by even one feeble word."

"Of course, I do not, refer to such cases. All I ask is that those whose minds are clear, who are able to attend to all other final details, should let it be seen what the gospel of Christ can do for poor sinners in the great exigency of life, giving Him the glory. I can tell you, my darling, that standing, as I so often do, by dying beds, this whole subject has become one of great magnitude to my mind And it gives me positive personal pain to see heirs of the eternal kingdom, made such by the ignominious death of their Lord, go shrinking and weeping to the full possession of their inheritance."

Ernest is right, I am sure, but how shall the world, even the Christian world, be convinced that it may have blessed fortastes of heaven while yet plodding upon earth, and faith to go thither joyfully, for the simple asking?

Poor Amelia! But she understands it all now. It is a blessed thing to have this great faith, and it is a blessed thing to have a Saviour who accepts it when it is but a mere grain of mustard-seed!

MAY 24.-I celebrated my little Una's third birthday by presenting her with a new brother. Both the children welcomed him with delight that was itself compensation enough for all it cost me to get up such a celebration. Martha takes a most prosaic view of this proceeding, in which she detects malice prepense on my part. She says I shall now have one mouth the more to fill, and two feet the more to shoe; more disturbed nights, more laborious days, and less leisure for visiting, reading, music, and drawing.

Well! this is one side of the story, to be sure, but I look at the other. Here is a sweet, fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for G.o.d, and the body in which it dwells is worthy all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Christ's name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other darlings had left me.

Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mother's heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her life- long prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, how wondrously blest!

JUNE 5.-We begin to be woefully crowded. We need a larger house, or a smaller household. I am afraid I secretly, down at the bottom of my heart, wish Martha and her father could give place to my little ones.

May G.o.d forgive me if this is so It is a poor time for such emotions when He has just given me another darling child, for whom I have as rich and ample a love as if I had spent no affection on the other twain. I have made myself especially kind to poor father and to Martha lest they should perceive how inconvenient it is to have them here, and be pained by it. I would not for the world despoil them of what little satisfaction they may derive from living with us. But, oh! I am so selfish, and it is so hard to practice the very law of love I preach to my children! Yet I want this law to rule and reign in my home, that it may be a little heaven below, and I will not, no, I will not, cease praying that it may be such, no matter what it costs me. Poor father! poor old man! I will try to make your home so sweet and home-like to you that when you change it for heaven it shall be but a transition from one bliss to a higher!

EVENING.-Soon after writing that I went down to see father, whom I have had to neglect of late, baby has so used up both time and strength.. I found him and Martha engaged in what seemed to be an exciting debate, as Martha had a fiery little red spot on each cheek, and was knitting furiously. I was about to retreat, when she got up in a flurried way and went off, saying, as she went:

"You tell her, father; I can't."

I went up to him tenderly and took his hand. Ah, how gentle and loving we are when we have just been speaking to G.o.d!

"What is it, dear father?" I asked; "is anything troubling you?"

"She is going to be married," he replied.

"Oh, father!" I cried, "how n-" nice, I was going to say, but stopped just in time.

All my abominable selfishness that I thought I had left at my Master's feet ten minutes before now came trooping back in full force.

"She's going to be married; she'll go away, and will take her father to live with her! I can have room for my children, and room for mother! Every element of discord will now leave my home, and Ernest will see what I really am!"

These were the thoughts that rushed through my mind, and that illuminated my face.

"Does Ernest know?" I asked.

"Yes, Ernest has known it for some weeks."