THERE is nothing that so appeals to my heart as a first sorrow in a family. We know all have to go through sorrows, but in some families the sorrow comes gradually — a dear one, say father, mother, or a son or daughter, has to be watched for long on a sick bed until the last sad moment comes, when almost for her sake or his sake one can almost say, “Thank God, the suffering is past, but for us comes the aching desolation.” But the first sorrow that comes like a thunderbolt on a family where as yet none have died, is a tragedy of sorrow.
So it was when our first death-sorrow came on all of us in “one hour,” one night, and I was the chief actor, except the one who was taken. We were a large family — father, mother and eleven brothers and sisters. I was nineteen, and not one of us had had a death-grief up to that day. As a dynamite bomb a thunderbolt, a crashing earthquake it came on one and all that Sunday morning. At nine o’clock on the Friday evening, while at family prayer, my sister was seized with cholera. Handing me the Book, she said, “You finish.” Before the next hour she was in bed with the awful cramp of cholera. Two doctors were in attendance all that night, whilst I was striving to carry out her constant cry, “Rub me! Rub me!”
About six o’clock on Saturday morning Dr. Jackson said, “Have you any relations near?” “At Pimlico.” “Send and fetch them as quickly as you can.” At once I dispatched one of the maids to our fly-man, who rushed off to my brother Arundell, then Curate of St. Michael’s, Pimlico, and as fast as possible he and Peter, who lived with him, were at her bedside. In the meantime I repeated the twenty-third Psalm and hymns, and asked for any messages she wanted to say. But before my brothers came she was unconscious and her face rigid with the agony she had endured. She was dead a few minutes after they arrived about half-past eight.
It was an awful, awful moment for us three, but to Peter it became the turning point of his life. From that moment he gave himself heart and soul to God — to his Mary’s God — a marvelous change; a new being from that day. He was simply “out and out” for the Lord, saying, as it were, with St. Paul, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” He left the world to follow Christ. “This one thing I do... I press towards the mark.” No more two masters for him; no more theater, or cards, etc., but following fully the Lord Jesus Christ, “who gave Himself for me.” He could say with the apostle, “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.”
Why am I writing all this? Just to warn anyone, young or old to show their love, or to love their dear relatives, father, mother; brothers and sisters, before the evil day comes when the sudden death of either may fill their hearts with remorse as well as the sorrow of a first sorrow.
Of course I shall never forget that awful night and the days that followed; the hastened funeral on the Monday at Kensal Green, when only my two brothers and a distant cousin could be at her grave. I well remember what took place at our door when, as was the custom in those days in London, a mute in deadly black with black banners, stood each side of the door ere the hearse and carriages drew up. Ladies did not go to funerals then, so I did not go. A circumstance occurred that might have proved serious. Just as the mutes were standing at the door, and the hearse drew up, our music master, Mr. Cox, from North London, came up and rang the bell. “Mistress is dead of cholera” was such a shock that he fainted away, and I had to administer towards his recovery for some time that afternoon.
When the sudden news of my sister’s death reached Exeter my father and Sophia only were at home. It was Sunday morning, and Sophia heard him cry out, “Mary is dead! Mary is dead!” but his next words were echoing the patriarch Job, “The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” My mother and two sisters had taken lodgings in Teignmouth, so father immediately put on his hat to go and break the fearful news, and he did break it indeed, bit by bit, groan by groan, until mother’s heart broke too. She never recovered from the shock, and she also died nine months after. When my father arrived at the lodgings they were all at church, so he waited, and when they returned he said, “I have some news for you, but you must all have your dinner first.” As he sat at the table, eating nothing, he kept groaning very loudly, for he was deaf, and perhaps did not know how he harrowed their minds and hearts.
At last mother said, “Mary must be dead; nothing else would make him groan like that.” Well, at last he told them and showed them a little lock of her hair that Arundell had sent with the letter for them to weep over. But mother’s tears were dried; only the agonizing appeal came to her lips, “Did she send any message to me?” Happily I was able to write a long account of all poor Mary said and suffered during that terrible night. Only three people died of cholera at Notting Hill that fearful year 1854, and each one was at a corner house up the same road. Many died in Shepherd’s Bush, and Mary had walked into Shepherd’s Bush the afternoon she took the disease.
Do let me appeal to you young friends to be kind and loving and gentle and obedient before the evil days come, for come they will Break the “alabaster box of ointment” on their heads during life; do not wait for their death to give them the flowers of your love. Neither flowers nor mourning, nor exceeding precious ointment will do them any good when once they have passed away from earth. And be ye also ready. Seek the Lord while He may be found, for at an hour when you think not you too may be called, even as Mary was. But she was ready, full of faith, proving her faith daily by her love for the Lord Jesus, and always striving to bring others to Him.
Emily P. Leakey