"Will you please teach me my verse, mamma, and then kiss me and bid me
good night," said little Roger, as he opened the door and peeped into
the chamber of his sick mother. "I am very sleepy, but no one has heard
me say my prayers." Mrs. L. was very ill, and her friends believed her
to be dying. She sat propped up with pillows and struggling for breath,
her eyes were growing dim, and her strength was failing very fast. She
was a widow, and little Roger was her only darling child. He had been in
the habit of coming into her room every night, and sitting in her lap,
or kneeling by her side, while she repeated some Scripture passages to
him or related a story of wise and good people. She always loved to
hear Roger's verse and prayer.
"Hush! hush!" said the lady who was watching beside the couch. "Your
dear mamma is too ill to hear you to night." And as she said this, she
came forward and laid her hand gently upon his arm as if she would lead
him from the room. "I cannot go to bed to night," said the little boy,
"without saying my prayers--I cannot."
Roger's dying mother heard his voice, and his sobs, and although she had
been nearly insensible to everything around her, yet she requested the
attendant lady to bring the boy and lay him near her side. Her request
was granted, and the child's rosy cheek nestled in the bosom of his
dying mother.
"Now you may repeat this verse after me," said his mother, "and never
forget it: 'When my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me
up.'" The child repeated it three times--then he kissed the pale cheek
of his mother, and went quietly to his little couch.
The next morning he sought as usual for his mother, but she was now cold
and motionless. She died soon after little Roger retired to his bed.
That was her last lesson to her darling boy--he did not forget it. He
has grown to be a man and occupies a high post of honor in
Massachusetts. I never can look upon him without thinking about the
faith so beautifully exhibited by his dying mother. It was a good
lesson.