Sacred Memories

 •  7 min. read  •  grade level: 6
 
A DYING testimony was not needed to those who knew our dear E. in her walk with God. It seemed as though the closing circumstances of her life were, in the deep purpose of God, according to her heart's earnest desire that in all things Christ might be magnified in her body, whether by life or death.
One day she told me, that the previous day five weeks, it was as though the Lord distinctly told her He was going to take her home. She was in a fainting state after dinner, unconscious of what passed around —one arm quite stiff—and when she awoke to consciousness was surprised to find herself still in the body. She said that while in the state of unconsciousness she distinctly saw the Lord at the other end of the room; that her impulse was to reach Him, and that He said, "Thy day is gone by; I am making thy bed." She then saw there were waves and billows between Him and herself, and she knew she had to pass them to get to Him; but any way was good. From that day everything of earth seemed to her to be coming to its end. She said she felt the Lord's tender goodness in giving her time for preparations for the close of her journey.
These are some of her words, spoken on different occasions: —
“I think I have overlooked death. I have thought of death with and life in Christ, and of the Lord's coming, but I have overlooked death as a fact that might come to me; but five weeks ago I went with the Lord through the conflict, and it is over.”
“It is a fiery trial. These are new experiences of the wilderness. It is an easy thing to die at once, but quite another thing to be laid on a sick bed. I am very much afraid of giving praise to anything that is of nature—it is so different from what God does.”
Once, when in great agony, she said, "This bringing down, it is all good; but do you pray for submission for me? I did ask the Lord to give me relief, if it were pleasing to Him, and He gave me a little." Then, addressing the Lord, she said, "O Lord, remove this pain, if it is Thy will, but do not let me lose anything by my impatience.”
On another occasion, when in great pain, her sufferings being noticed, she said, "Ah! we talk of our cross, but we do not know what it is until we are called to bear it. Never shrink from the cross or try to escape from suffering when you are called to it: go boldly forward through it.”
“How wonderful that God should joy over poor sinners, and yet there is joy in the presence of the angels.”
“It is a mercy there is no fear—' Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil.' A death-bed is very humiliating! Well, when God has done all He has to do in me, He will take me to Himself,”
“This is the end of man. Christ is so precious—no end with Him; Christ, the beginning, middle, and end, has done all the work—His precious blood!”
"It is not the glory that fills my eye, it is the Lord Himself—yes, My glory.' Ah, it is that they shall behold my glory.'”
On one occasion, after sleeplessness for fifty hours, she was very feeble and excited, and said more than once, "It is hysteria." But her happiness seemed unutterable, and her countenance so beamed with joy that it was impossible not to respond with a smile. "Ah!" she said, "you are rejoicing with me; I'm so glad." She kept lifting up and letting fall the hands placed in hers, looking up, and almost laughing with joy. She was like a bird just ready for flight. Once following the direction of my eyes, she said, "Ah! we can only look up now. 'They shall walk with me in white'—Sovereign grace; yet I am almost faint-hearted sometimes.”
“I'm only afraid of not being made perfect weakness, of not being brought low enough.”
“I think you have thought more of the love of the Father and I more of the love of Christ, my Master and Lord," she said to a friend. "It is the Father's will that must be done—an undivided stream of love and peace flowing down from God the Father, meeting all the little crookednesses of my heart and will. Pray for me for submission to His will. It is not exactly in submission, but irritability in me.”
“I have not the bright manifestations of His glory that I might have," she said; "but I must wait for the reality.”
“But you see His faithfulness," said a friend. "He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young." "That's just it," she replied; "He is gathering.”
“I was thinking it was just possible that I might not see death. The Lord said at the beginning, Behold, I come quickly.' He only waits to bring sinners to Himself ere He comes back; He wishes us to have this blessed hope before us.—' We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.'—' We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.'—' Not that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.'”
Humiliation—humiliation—the end of man," were words that more than once fell from her lips." I think it not strange concerning the fiery trial. I need divine strength to carry me through. Christ must be everything—man nothing. We must be emptied of self—that's what we want. It is my Father's will, and I can now say that I am willing, even if I am to have another week. I'm like the dust shaken in the crucible.”
After a long silence she said, "Oh, the value of Jesus!" Then she repeated the lines—
“Dear dying Lamb Thy precious blood
Shall never lose its power,
Till all the ransomed Church of God
Be saved to sin no more.”
"To sin no more! —Precious words! Take me—take me—take me," she kept saying, not with impatience, but desire. And many, many times as if almost unconscious, she would repeat, "Away— away—away,” moving her head at each word from side to side, with an expression of the extremity of weakness.
“Perfect rest-perfect peace. Ah, I want to know that Name when they come." But the enemy was not suffered to approach! Once during the night-whether conscious or not we cannot tell-she said, "Things of earth! what are they; they're not worth looking at!" and said it with great emphasis.
The day before her last she said to a friend, “Some have had glorious and triumphant deaths, I was not ambitious for that, but that the creature might be humbled and God exalted, the creature forgotten.”
We spoke together of ending where we began, with Jesus. "Oh, yes," she said, "and there is no end with Him, He has done wonders for me.”
“Green pastures," I heard her whisper, and she looked enquiringly. I repeated the 23rd Psalm. It was evidently what she wanted.
Again she looked earnestly at me and said, "Inheritance have you reckoned the time?”
I repeated," If children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." She smiled and moved her head as with assent and pleasure. After this she lay quiet for a time, and then relapsed into unconsciousness. All this night her sufferings were intense. One was reminded of the writhings of a worm-every fiber seemed to quiver to the touch of the hand pressed (as she liked it) on one particular spot where the pain was the worst. She knew the happy moment was at hand, said she wished to be quiet—the door closed—that she could have no more intercourse with us, though our fellowship would not be interrupted.
Her eyes were continually upward. Only one word we heard, "Mercy," faintly whispered by her-not as seeking, but as having long since found it, and as now tasting it.
Mercy was a word she loved. [E. C. 1858.]