One with you in the Lord,
M. FLETCHER.
The last week of her life she wished to have manifested her love again in
this way, but writing had long been very fatiguing to her. However she
asked me for the paper, but as I knew how difficult it was to her, I
said, “What is it you wish to write? let me write for you.” “No, (she
replied,) it won’t do for you to write what I would say, but I think I am
too weak for writing now: I only wanted to put it down with my own hand,
before I am taken from you, how completely satisfied I am with all that
you have done, and how thankful I am that my papers are all in your
hands, and nothing to be printed but as you approve; and that I am fully
persuaded whatever trials you may have to pass through, God will be with
you.” She was often telling me how confident she was, that the Lord
would make all my way plain before me; and has sometimes said, “In all
the painful circumstances you will have to pass through, your language
still will be, The Lord liveth, and blessed be my rock, and exalted be
the God of my salvation.”
She left nothing undone, that the creature could do, to soften the stroke
of separation. While she herself stood, as the pigeon on the house-top,
ready
“To clap the glad wing, and tower away,
To mingle with the blaze of day;”
her longing desire for that hour was frequently expressed by her
exclaiming; “O! my God, when shall I come to thy dear bosom!” At another
time she would say, “My Jesus, and my all, I pant to see thee as thou
art; O come, and take me to thy loving breast.” But, to write all her
lively animating expressions, would fill volumes: I must therefore desist
from recording any more of them, and conclude this account (which I have
many times wished some abler hand had been the writer of,) by mentioning,
that at the beginning of her christian warfare, she saw, as a plan for
her life, the words of the apostle Paul to Timothy, 1st Epistle, chap. v.
verse 10: “Well reported of for good works; if she have brought up
children, if she have lodged strangers, if she have washed the saints’
feet, if she have relieved the afflicted, if she have diligently followed
every good work.” And here I cannot but appeal to all you who have known
her, whether her life has not agreed with this description, which she
took as a rule for her conduct. Is she not well reported of for good
works? has she not brought up children? has she not lodged strangers? has
she not washed the saints’ feet? has she not relieved the afflicted, and
diligently followed every good work? These things you know she has done;
yea, has she not been abundant therein? But did she value herself upon
any of all the works of righteousness she wrought? No, by no means. All
her salvation she ever ascribed to him who had loved her, and washed her
in his own most precious blood: therefore, with delight she would often
repeat,
“Because that I can nothing do,
Jesus, do all the work alone;
And bring my soul triumphant through,
To wave its palm before the throne.”
I must now conclude: but not without fervently praying, that the zeal,
diligence, love, and humility, with all that faith _in_ and active
dependence _upon_ the Saviour, that was in her, may dwell richly in each
of you: and trusting that I also shall be interested in your prayers,
that an abundant entrance may be administered unto me into the kingdom of
our God and Saviour, after that I have for a little longer done and
suffered his righteous will; that so I may overtake my company that’s
gone before, and safely arrive “where all the ship’s company meet, who
sailed with the Saviour beneath.”
Waiting for that happy day,