BY HER MOTHER.
THE object in putting together these few facts is to show the work of the Spirit of God in the mind of a little child. We sometimes wonder in what way we should have received the truths of the Gospel, if we had had no previous conventional ideas of “religion.” In following the work of the Spirit in the mind of one who was unacquainted with the usual forms and expressions, we may better be able to realize the extreme simplicity of faith, and the living power of the Spirit.
It will be seen that Ada was a child of a peculiar mind, capable of receiving ideas more clearly than most children of her age. It is not likely, nor would it be desirable, that children should in general receive the Gospel in so reasoning a manner as she did. In her case, however, the intellect was not forced in any way, but as much as possible kept back. She was taught only the simple facts of the Gospel. This, instead of exciting her mind, had, as will be seen, the effect of controlling and calming her when in health, and of giving her unspeakable happiness in sickness and death. Again: though it may be said she had but childish notions, it was clearly proved that, such as they were, they were powerful enough to turn her naturally strong will in the right direction, to mold her character into conformity with the will of God, and to fill her with joy and peace in believing.
Ada was born in June, 1857. The first thing we remember in connection with her spiritual life was when she was a year and a half old. She one day came into my room, in January, 1859, and, pulling my dress, said, “Mammy, kneel!”
I knelt down, and she did the same, and said, “Pray, mammy!”
I said, “Ada shall pray.”
She put her hands together, and said, “Jesus good! Ta!”
This was her constant prayer for some time. Once, when she had been praying in a whisper, I asked her what she had been saying.
She answered, “I say to Jesus, O Lord, Ta!”
Yet, though she felt thankful to Jesus for all the things He gave her, she did not at this time love Him personally.
One day, when she was just two years old, I asked her to pray, which she refused to do, saying, “I don’t want to pray now.”
I said, “Children who love Jesus like to pray.” Ada answered, “I don’t love Jesus!”
I said, “It makes me very unhappy to hear Ada say that.”
She burst into tears, and said, “Oh, please don’t be unhappy;” and seemed so miserable I was obliged to comfort her, and turn her attention to something else.
She went to play with her toys on the carpet, and, about half an hour afterward, I heard her suddenly begin to cry.
I asked what was the matter. She got up and ran to me, and then, throwing herself down, in the most beseeching way, she said, with the tears streaming down, “Oh, mammy, do make me love Jesus!”
I told her that I could not, but that Jesus could, and that He would if she asked Him.
She knelt down immediately, and asked Him to make her love Him.
After this time she always spoke of Him with the greatest love, and frequently said to her elder sister, Edith, “I do love Jesus so much!”
And when Edith asked her why, she said, “Because He’s so kind.”
When she was about two years old she began to pray for everything she wanted.
She was never taught any prayer till she was three years and a half old; so that she was accustomed to use her own words, and she considered everything a fit subject for prayer.
When she was about two and a half, she had been very busy arranging her bedroom in London, and she came to tell me that there were no china candlesticks on the chimneypiece, as there were in the other bedrooms.
I said, “That’s very sad; what will you do?”
She answered immediately, “I know.” And she ran into the next room, and remained there for a minute. When she came back, she said, “I’ve asked Jesus to let me have some candlesticks, and now a man at the shop will give some to papa for me.”
But six months later than this, when she heard a story of a little girl who prayed for toys, she said, “I shouldn’t pray for toys now. It wasn’t wrong of the little girl, because she was so wee! Now I ask Jesus to make me good.”
She continued, however, to thank Jesus for the smallest things. She prayed very often, but generally only for one or two things at a time.
At one time she disliked being kissed, because it interrupted her when she was busy with her toys; and sometimes she refused to kiss me when I went into the nursery in the morning.
One day I heard her praying, “O Lord Jesus, do make me not mind kissing mammy!”
After this, when she was just three years old, she no longer objected to kissing, or being kissed, but would constantly come and say, “Now I will give you a lamb’s kiss,” by which she meant a very gentle one.
When she heard of wicked people, she generally proposed to pray for them.
One day, when we were all in the garden, and were talking of the Jewish children who were to come from the Bethnal Green Schools, next day, to dine under the trees, we remarked that the weather had been so wet we could hardly hope for a fine day; and someone said, “We really ought to pray that it may be fine.”
Ada, hearing this, instantly knelt down on the gravel, and said, “O Lord, do make it fine tomorrow, that the little children mayn’t get wet!”
Several people remarked, next day, “Ada’s prayer has been answered,” for it was one of the few fine days of that summer.
She liked to pray where she was not disturbed. Finding that Ashley would come and pull her frock, she at first spoke to him very gravely, and said, “Ashley, you shouldn’t disturb me when I’m praying to Jesus.”
Ashley, however, who was not much more than a year old, paid no attention. Ada then made a practice of going into her brother’s room every morning to pray, because there, she said, she could be quiet.
Once when she came back, she said, “I must go into S.’s room again.”
I said, “Why? do you want to pray anymore?”
She answered, “No, I’ve done praying; but I must go and think.” She went, and remained there alone several minutes.
When she came in to family prayers she sat quite still while the chapter was read, and always brought with her a small Testament; for she imagined she could read it. When the prayer began she knelt down, repeated her own prayer in a whisper, and then got up, and sat perfectly still till the end.
Someone said to her once, “Why do you get up in the middle of prayers? you should kneel all the time.”
Ada, who had no idea of doing anything merely as a form, replied, “I do kneel as long as I am praying.” And this plan she persevered in; for it seemed to her that to remain kneeling when she was not praying was unreal and unnecessary. She listened to the chapter at prayers, and tried to understand it.
It will be seen from the preceding that Ada was not accustomed to repeat religious expressions as a parrot, or to speak of religion without a definite idea of what she, at least, meant by it. The remarkable point in her character was, that whilst she argued about common subjects, and required a clear explanation about them in answer to her questions, she never disputed any spiritual truth which was put before her. She sometimes said, “I can’t understand that;” but she never made any objections. With regard to other things, nothing short of the fullest explanation would satisfy her. For instance, when only two years old, before she was able to walk downstairs, she was in the habit of sitting on the stairs and slipping down. One day she stopped in the middle of the staircase, and said, “Tell me why I can slip down, but I can’t slip up.”
I answered, that she was not old enough to understand why, but that I would tell her some day.
This did not satisfy her. She continued, “Things can slip down, but not up: do tell me why not.”
I merely replied that they could not slip up, and that that was quite enough for her to know now.
“Yes,” she said, “but I do want to know why. They can’t slip up—then what makes them slip down?”
The only thing to do was to change the subject.
Another time, on hearing a story of a boy who cut his hand with a sickle, she said, “I don’t know what a sickle is.”
She was told it was something to cut corn with. “Yes,” she said; “but what is it? Is it like a scythe?”
On being told it was not, she got some paper and a pencil, and said, “Draw me a picture of a sickle, and then of a scythe, that I may know the difference.”
This was done. She repeated, “Sickle—scythe,” till she thoroughly knew it; and some time after, when driving out, she said, “Now I can see a man with a sickle! I know now what a sickle is.”
In this way she learned about everything which surrounded her, and never forgot a thing, having once formed a clear idea respecting it. In the same way she would ask the meaning of words, and take the greatest care to use them correctly.
On one occasion she asked if she might come downstairs; adding, “Perhaps there are some strawberries downstairs.”
I said, “I am afraid you love the strawberries, and that makes you want to come—not because you love mammy.”
She said, “No; I love people—I like things. I don’t love strawberries.” At this time she was only just two years old.
It was not likely that, reasoning in this way, she would take up spiritual expressions, and use them as she did, without having been fully persuaded of the truth of what she meant to say.
It was of course necessary, with a mind of this sort, to refrain from teaching her as much as possible. She was therefore taught nothing but the simplest facts of the Bible, especially those directly concerning the Saviour. Finding, however, that she was not to have lessons as she wished, she used to form the letters with her fingers, or copy them with a pencil, asking the first person she saw to tell her the name of that letter. But as much as possible she was left to play; on Sundays she learned Bible stories or hymns, generally from Edith in the morning. This she called her Sunday school, and insisted on going to her lesson with a little shawl on, and a handkerchief tied like a sun bonnet, in order that she might be like the cottage children going to school.
One Sunday I found her in the schoolroom building a house with bricks. She said, “Do you think Jesus will mind my having my bricks on Sunday?”
I said I thought not, because she was such a little girl.
Another Sunday she came again, and said, “M. says I ought not to have my toys on Sunday. Do you think Jesus will mind it?”
I again answered that I thought not.
She went on, “I don’t think He will, because I am such a wee girl. If I was a great girl like Dada” (Edith), “and could read and write, then I wouldn’t want to have my toys on Sunday, because I should be able to read about Jesus. But now I can’t read—so I don’t think He will mind.”
But she was always ready to leave her toys to hear stories from the Bible, to which she would listen as long as anybody would tell them to her.
Sometimes I was obliged to say, “I shall tell you no more now, but wait till another time.”
One Sunday, when I had finished, she said, “I like Sunday much the best of all the days, because then I hear so much more about Jesus.”
She was a child naturally self-willed, and very passionate, besides being of an excitable and irritable temperament. About the time that she was two years old, her health was for some time delicate, and she was more indulged during that time than would otherwise have been the case. The habit of going into violent passions began to grow stronger. She would cry out, “I will!” — “I shall!” — “I mean this for naughtiness!”
In consequence of this, her father threatened several times to whip her; and at last, soon after she was three years old, he actually did so, lest she should imagine he did not mean what he said. He whipped her on two occasions.
Instead of being angry and repelled from him by this discipline, she seemed fully to understand it was a duty which cost him as much as it did her; and she appeared to love him the more for it.
At first she would argue about it with me, and say, “When Eugenie” (her doll) “is naughty, I don’t whip her: I only kiss her, and say, ‘Be good!’ and that makes her quite good at once.”
I told her there was once a man who treated his children in that way, but that God was displeased with him, and his children grew up very wicked.
She said, “Yes—that was Eli. Then people ought to be punished.”
I do not remember that after this she disputed the point.
After having been whipped, she took great care never to commit the same fault when she thought her father was within hearing.
One day, however, he came in unexpectedly and caught her in one of her passions, and was about thus to punish her again, when she put her little hands together, and looking up in his face in the most beseeching manner, said, “O pappy! shall you be obliged to whip me?” —an appeal which a father’s heart found it impossible to resist.
It was not, however, till some time after this that, through grace given in answer to prayer, she was enabled entirely to overcome her evil tempers.
One day she said to me, “Oh, I’ve been in such a passion! I did pray to Jesus about it, but I think I didn’t try to stop it. It is no use to pray if I don’t try. I must pray and try too.”
Another time she came to me and said, “It’s all no use. I can’t help going into passions. This time I prayed and I tried too, and then all at once I forgot, and I screamed, and I was very naughty! Why can’t I help it?”
She would sometimes stop short in a burst of passion, and say, in a determined voice, “Go down, naughty will, go down!” She would then kneel down instantly, and pray most earnestly to be made good. But it frequently happened that almost as soon as she had done praying, if her will were opposed in any way, she would again go into a passion; so that her nurse one day observed, “I don’t think much of such prayers; for it seems to me like the Roman Catholics, who think, when they’ve said their prayers, it is all done, and they may act as they like.”
This remark was, of course, not comprehensible to Ada; but it happened, some weeks after this, that she came to me and said, “Tell me what a lie means; I heard them talking about someone who told a lie.”
I told her a story of a little girl who broke a jar, and said that she had not done it, and explained that a lie meant saying or pretending what is not true. As she wished to hear more about it, I told her the stories of Gehazi and Ananias.
She then said, “I know now what a lie means.”
About an hour afterward she came again, and said, “Tell me more about lies. Suppose I pray to Jesus, and say, ‘O Lord, make me good!’ and then, as soon as I have done, I go into a passion, and say, I will, and I won’t—was my prayer a lie?”
I replied that it was, for that she could not have really wished to be good if she forgot so soon.
Ada looked grave, and then, kneeling down, prayed most earnestly, “O Lord Jesus, do make me good, and don’t let me go into passions. Oh, do make me good! Do, do, Lord Jesus! Amen.” Then, getting up, she said, “That prayer was not a lie.”
From this time we never remember that, after praying, she lost her temper: indeed, about this time, which was, to the best of our recollection, in November, 1860, she left off going into passions altogether, and, some months after, she said, “You see I don’t go into passions now. The reason is, I asked Jesus not to let me, and He keeps me from it.”
She said another time, “I used to go into such passions! But now I ask to be made good.”
About a week before her illness, I said to her, “I am so glad you have left off going into passions, as you did once.”
She answered, “Yes, but I do think the naughty things in my heart still, though I don’t scream them out now.”
The sorrowful way in which she said this was very touching.
About the time that she most frequently went into passions, she had a habit of refusing to be dressed in the morning. When the dressing was over, she used to come into my room, and have a water-biscuit, of which she was very fond. At last I made a rule that she should never have the biscuit unless she had been good whilst dressing; and she was to tell me herself every morning whether that was the case. She sometimes said, “I am sorry to say I have been very naughty.”
It often cost her some tears when she found that this confession really lost her the biscuit; but it never seemed to occur to her to conceal the truth in consequence.
She would perhaps say, the next morning, “I am afraid you mustn’t give me a biscuit, for I can’t say I’ve been good. I screamed, and said ‘I won’t.’”
One morning she said, “I’ve been almost good, only I was rather a little vain; I wanted to have on my new frock, when Ninna said ‘No.’”
I never once found, from inquiry, that she told me anything but the strictest truth; indeed, sometimes they told me she had rather exaggerated her naughtiness than otherwise; for, when they had scarcely remarked that she had been impatient, she insisted upon it that she had been naughty, and said so accordingly.
It should be observed, that from the time she was three years old, she appeared to have a very clear and definite idea of the character of the Lord Jesus; and not only so, but of His work of Redemption and Sanctification. This impression of His character seemed so firmly fixed in her mind, that it never for a moment varied.
Before she was three years old, we were one day looking at the Sunday Picture Book, and Ada asked me to explain the picture of the Woman of Samaria. I said, “This is meant for Jesus, and the woman is a naughty woman, who came to get some water.”
Ada said, “Tell me what Jesus is saying to her.”
In order to try her, I questioned as to His saying, “Go away, naughty woman; you are too bad to talk to Me!”
Ada looked incredulous, and then said, “No, He wouldn’t say that.”
I asked, “What do you think He said?”
After thinking an instant, she answered, “I know... He said, ‘Woman, I will make you good.’”
Just before she was three, she was playing with a little angel made of Parian china, of which she was extremely fond. She ran with it into the nursery, and said, “Look, Ninny, how white and clean the little angel is! It looks as if all its sins had been washed away.”
Her nurse replied, “People’s sins cannot be washed away by making them clean outside. If I were to wash you ever so much, I couldn’t wash away your sins.”
Ada said, “No, you couldn’t; but I know who can.”
On her third birthday she had a great many presents, with which she was extremely delighted. She went round the house to show them, and afterward ran into my room, where she knelt down and prayed in a low voice, so that I could only hear a part of what she said; but I could hear that she finished her prayer by thanking Jesus for all her presents, which she mentioned one by one,— “My doll, my little workbox,” etc., and having mentioned them all, she added, “And I THANK YOU, O JESUS, THAT YOU WAS PUNISHED ASTEAD OF ME.”
On another occasion, when she had finished her prayer with the same words, she observed that I was listening; and getting up, she said, “You see I ‘membered about His being punished.”
Sometimes, when she had told me that she had been very naughty, I said to her, “It is quite right of papa to punish you. Do you think God will punish you?”
She answered, “No, He won’t. Jesus was punished astead of me.”
And often she would come and say, “Tell me a story; tell me about what the wicked people did to Jesus—how Jesus was punished.”
Having told her, I sometimes said, “Why was Jesus punished in that dreadful way? Had He done something naughty?”
It would be impossible to forget the emphatic way in which she answered, “No, it was me. It was because I was so naughty, and Jesus loved me so much He didn’t like me to be punished; so HE WAS PUNISHED ASTEAD OF ME.”
This she often referred to, saying, “Jesus didn’t want me to be punished; it was because He loved me so, and He wanted me to live in the beautiful place.” The more clearly she received this truth, the greater became her hatred of sin.
About the time that she left off going into passions, we all remarked, in her whole conduct, a strict conscientiousness about other matters. She became extremely obedient, and frequently, when in the nursery, said, “I mustn’t do this or that; papa told me so once.”
One day, during the Christmas holidays in 1860, I met Ada in the passage screaming and crying. She ran into my room, and I could not pacify her. I thought she must be seriously hurt, for it was long before she could speak for crying. At last she said, “Oh, I can’t tell you what it is—I can’t say it.”
I entreated her to tell me; and, after refusing several times, she said, “I’ve said a bad word, and I can’t tell you what it is, because then I should have to say it again. I’ve said a word that isn’t fit for a young lady.”
On inquiry, I found it was a nonsensical but harmless word which the boys had made her say. As soon as she had said it, she imagined that it was something wrong, and ran out of the room crying.
About the same time one of her brothers had a habit of calling people pigs. Ada said to him, in return, “You’re a pig.” But no sooner had she said it than she burst into tears, and refused to be comforted, saying, “Oh, I didn’t know I said it. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to say such a bad word.” And she went up to bed crying.
Soon after she said to me, “Willy will say bad words. Why will he say them?”
I replied that they were not bad words, but only ugly words, and that he learned them from boys at school. I said, “Many boys at school say bad words, and I am glad Willy doesn’t say those; he only says ugly words.”
She said, “I am glad they were only ugly words. I suppose the naughty boys say very bad words indeed: perhaps they say, ‘I won’t! and I don’t care!’ I’m glad Willy doesn’t say that.” She seemed, however, hardly satisfied about him.
During the last few months of her life, the very idea that she had thought of a naughty word made her unhappy; and several times she told me, “I haven’t been quite good, I thought about ‘I will!’ and ‘I won’t!’”
This appears in a letter which she wrote to her father in January, 1861. She dictated this letter word for word, and insisted on holding the pen herself. She was very anxious that the date, with the Post office letter, W., should be written at the top, and would not begin the letter till she was satisfied about this—having heard her father mention that the district had been changed by the Post office from S.W. to W.
“BEAUTIFUL CREATURE,—I hope you’ll soon come; and when you come, on your birthday I’ll give you a present. And I will give you seven kisses. Baby’s arm has got very bad. We got a perambulator, and I hope we’ll soon go out; but it is very foggy today, and I think it’ll soon rain. Ar [Alice] is sick, and she can’t go out.
“Dear papa, we’re very happy here. I’ve been very good, but not all day. I thought of some naughty words. I hope you’ll soon come back, dear papa. I send you seven kisses. I hope you’ll like this nice letter. Dada [Edith] gave me some nice toys. I hope you’re very well. And we’ve got the piano. They brought it in an ugly box. I hope you’re happy.
“Affectionate ADA.”
~~~~~~
This carefulness about her words was, perhaps, increased by her intuitive dislike to all that was coarse or ugly—not merely in language, but in everything else. She had a remarkable love of beauty in any shape, and it was an intense delight to her to see any beautiful object. When we went to F—, in 1860, she was taken for a walk near the church, and came back perfectly delighted. She said, “Isn’t it much more beautiful than the church at T— Park?” which was perfectly true—the one being an ugly modern church, and the other a very pretty Early English one.
“I wish,” she said, “papa would let me have a little house close by it, and then I would always look at it.”
In the spring, before she was three years old, her delight at seeing the flowers was beyond expression. She constantly added to her prayers—sometimes kneeling down on the spot— “I thank you, Jesus, for making the pretty little buds and flowers come!” (Gen. 2:99And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis 2:9).)
Flowers, and especially wildflowers, were her greatest pleasure. She asked to be told the name of every flower she found, and repeated it over and over till she knew it thoroughly. She took great pains to learn the difference between any which were at all alike—as, for instance, chamomile flowers and ox-eye daisies—and she could soon tell them at a distance. At F—she delighted in seeing the sheepfolds and the cornfields, and in running about on the hills. She thought the hills perfectly beautiful, and said, “Oh, I wish we could take a hill back to T—Park!” She preferred one or two wildflowers to any number of garden flowers, thinking them so much the prettier.
In the autumn of 1860 she ran into my room, threw herself down in a perfect ecstasy, and said, “I’ve seen something so beautiful. You must go and see it!”
I asked her what it was. She said, “It’s a picture. But it’s much, much more beautiful than any picture I ever saw before. I think it must be more beautiful than any other picture in the world. I will tell you about it. It’s a beautiful round picture. There’s a woman sitting so” (she leant forwards and put her head down sideways). “She has such a lovely face! And she has a very wee little boy sitting on her knee; and he has a very, very sweet little face, like Ashley. And there’s another little boy not quite so wee, and he stands so” (putting her hands across); “and he has a little cross, and he looks at the wee little boy. It’s the most beautiful picture I ever saw in all my life!”
I at once concluded it was the Madonna della Seggiola; and, on inquiry, found it was so—a copy having just arrived from Florence, which Ada had seen in her brother’s room.
The common pictures, such as those in the Sunday Picture Book, she had never cared for, except on account of the stories; every now and then remarking, “I suppose Jesus is not really like that. I don’t think He is.” Yet it required more than this feeling for the beautiful to give her the sense of sin which caused her sorrow when she had spoken or heard that which she believed to be wrong or unbecoming.
From about the time that she was three years old she constantly said, “I wish I might go to Jesus now.”
When I said to her, “We shall go some day,” she looked disappointed, and answered, “Yes, but I want to go now.”
This she constantly repeated, and added, sometimes with tears in her eyes, “Then I shall never be naughty anymore.”
Often she said to me, “Tell me about when I shall go to Jesus, and about the beautiful place.”
She said one day, to Miss R., “I love Jesus more than anybody else does: I love Him more than papa and mamma do, for I want to go to Him now.”
And about the same time, after talking on the subject to her nurse, she knelt down and prayed to Him to let her come now—repeating this most earnestly, till her nurse was obliged to turn her attention to something else, lest she should excite herself too much.
She often prayed that He would soon come; and once when I had prayed with her before going to bed, and had said nothing about His coming, she called me back, and said, “Say to Jesus, ‘Do come soon!’”
She often asked me to pray for this; and afterward she would say, “Now, perhaps, He will come today!”
Sometimes she would call Edith to go with her into another room alone to pray, and she would then pray most earnestly that Jesus would soon come.
She constantly asked me to talk to her about His coming, and to tell her about her little sister Lucy, who had died fifteen years before at about her own age.
She was never so much pleased as when she was allowed to see Lucy’s toys, and to put on a scarf with which Lucy was fond of dressing herself up.
We always remarked that she looked extremely grave and thoughtful on these occasions; and she once asked, “If Jesus comes now and brings Lucy with Him, will she mind that I have been playing with her toys?”
She was never tired of hearing about Lucy; but her chief desire was to see Jesus. If she heard that any one loved Jesus, it would overcome her natural shyness; and, amongst those she knew well, she was always pleased to find that they spoke of these things.
In general, she was not fond of strangers, and would run away if visitors came; and till she was three years old, she often cried at the sight of a face to which she was not accustomed.
One morning, when Mr. H. was coming into the room, and she was running off, as usual, I said to her, “You need not be afraid of Mr. H.; he loves Jesus.” She came back, and shook hands with.
About the same time a gentleman with mustaches called, and she not only ran away, but went all round the room to avoid passing him.
Her nurse said to her afterward, “It was silly of you to be so frightened: that gentleman is a good man, and loves Jesus.”
Ada answered, “I didn’t know that, or I would have shook hands with him.”
At first she was very much afraid of Mr. P., a pious clergyman, and cried whenever she saw him; but just after she was three years old, when she heard that he was coming, she promised not to be afraid. She kept her promise, and talked to him immediately. She said, “Ashley’s going to be a little sailor-boy.”
Mr. P. asked what she would like to be.
She said, “I would like to be a little lamb.”
Mr. P. said, “Do you know who is the Good Shepherd?”
She answered, “Yes—Jesus is the Good Shepherd. I want to be His little lamb. I know a hymn about that.” She then said,
“Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear me!”
This was one of the few hymns she knew. She generally said it when she went to bed, leaving off with the line,
“Bless the friends I love so well;”
and explained, “That means Gerty and Emily K.”
Her favorite hymn was,
“I think, when I read that sweet story of old.”
She knew, however, only the first verse, and altered it in some respects. For instance, in the last line, she always said, with great emphasis,
“Let the dear little ones come unto Me!”
One day, just before she was three years old, when I called her to say her hymn, she began with a very serious face—
“Twas God who made the pretty flowers,
So pleasant and so bright.”
The remaining two lines I forget: they were correct in meter and rhyme, but not well expressed; so that I said, “Who taught you that hymn?”
She answered, “A silly little woman—it was me!”
I found she had composed it, as she constantly did others.
She was almost always telling herself stories, in verse or in prose, and had a very correct ear for meter. The stories were very often about good people who died and went to Jesus. Her favorite hymns and stories, except those directly about Jesus, were those about little children. Her fondness for little children was very great: nothing pleased her so much when she went out as to see the little children by the roadside. She sometimes said, “Oh, do let me get out of the carriage and talk to them!”
The little girls gleaning in the cornfields delighted her. She would say, “Oh, that darling little girl! Do let us drive back again the same way, to see her again! She looked at me so sweetly.”
When she was walking, she asked to be allowed to talk to any little children, and to kiss them. If they were shy, she was very much distressed, and would put her arms round them, and say, “Don’t be frightened, dear! Do talk to me!”
She was very fond of going to the school, and talked a great deal about the children, remarking of one little girl, “She had a black frock on. Poor little girl!—perhaps she has got no mother.”
If children came to see her, she was ready to give them her toys, and would offer them what she considered the greatest privilege—to drink out of her own mug at teatime.
When Ashley became old enough to take her toys, she was at first very much displeased, and for some time was not kind to him. Afterward we remarked a great change in her in this respect; and she became ready to give up to him on all occasions, because, as she said, he was “littler.” When he was ill and put in a warm bath, she ran out of the room several times to pray for him; and when he was naughty she would do the same, saying, “O Lord Jesus, do make Ashley good! Oh, do, do, Lord Jesus!”
She hardly ever prayed without mentioning all her brothers and sisters.
A few days before her last illness, she was in the drawing-room when a basket was brought in full of things for sale: amongst them was a worsted ball of bright colors. Ada was charmed with this ball, and said, “O mammy, do buy it for me!—it’s the most beautiful ball I ever saw in all my life!”
I said, “We will look and see if there is one for Ashley, too.” But there was no other, upon which I said, “What shall I do? Shall I give this one to you or to Ashley?”
She answered, “I think you had better buy it for Ashley; he’s such a much littler boy.”
I told her she might take it to him, which she did with the greatest delight.
Another day she had been out with us in the carriage. As we returned home we met Ashley and his nurse. After a little discussion whether it would be too cold for Ashley to drive home on the box, we ended by taking him. But Ada began to cry bitterly, and cried all the way home, till she saw Ashley taken down. Then, in answer to inquiries as to what was the matter, she said, “I thought Ashley would be so cold up there.” She was very anxious that Ashley should, as she said, “know about Jesus.” Before he was a year and a half old, she constantly attempted to teach him to pray, and one day said to me, with great delight, “Ashley does understand about Jesus. He’s very wee, and doesn’t know many things; but I think he does know about that, for he kneels down and says, ‘Jesus.’”
There are many more things which we might remember, showing the power of the Gospel over her mind, during the last few months of her life especially. She looked at all that she was taught in a practical manner. For instance, in the autumn of 1860, I told her the story of Eve. I observed that Eve ought not to have stayed to listen to the serpent, nor to look at the fruit, because she was thus led to wish for it.
Some days after, Ada wished to run out of the drawing-room window to gather Escholzias from a bed upon the lawn. I told her not to do so, as she would catch cold. She gave it up at once, but remained looking out of the window for some time. At last she turned away, and said, “I think I’d better not look at the flowers anymore. It might make me wish to run out. It would be like Eve.” And she went away to play, out of sight of the flowers.
When she was nearly three and a half, her aunt, the authoress of “The Peep of Day,” gave her a copy of her book. This she preferred to every other book, and was constantly walking about with it, and asking people to read it to her. Her favorite part, as far as she knew it, was page 21; and this she soon knew by heart, and used to find the page herself, and repeat it as though she was reading it, giving great emphasis to the questions and answers. She was delighted with the account of the creation.
She had an unlimited respect for everything her father said, and all he told her she carefully remembered. She one day said to me, “Do ask Aunt F. to write a book about papa. He’s so wonderful, there ought to be a book written to tell people about him!”
She had become scrupulously obedient in the smallest matters, and took great trouble to do all she was told.
Before she left T—Park for the last time, she was very fond of painting pictures when she came down to the drawing-room. As this was rather an untidy process, a rule was made that she should spread a cloth on her little table, and, when she had done, put away all her things in her drawer, which was low enough for her to reach. She asked to be taught to fold up the cloth, and did it several times, till she could fold it neatly.
It was very touching, on going to T—Park a few days before her death, to find in the drawer all her little painting things carefully put away, including the small mug still half full of water, showing that she had put them away herself when unobserved.
A great change had shown itself in her character with respect to another point. A year before this I had generally found her very unwilling to do anything for others—even for me. If told to bring or pick up anything, she would at once refuse, and would persist in refusing in the most determined manner. Once, when she had consented to pick up a ball of worsted, she remarked, with a look of offended dignity, “Some Adas would not have done that.”
By the time she was three years old, I had no further trouble with her in such matters. She had become extremely fond of helping others, and would constantly say to me, “Do let me carry that for you; I think you’ll be tired.” One of her favorite amusements was to pretend to be a little cottage girl, waiting on her sick mother. In the autumn of 1860 I was unable to go downstairs for some time. Ada, hearing that I had my lunch brought up to me, and that I was unable to leave the sofa, hurried through her dinner, at which she was generally slow, and, without a hint from any one, came into my room, saying, “I think I’d better stay with you while you have your lunch, because you can’t change your plate, nor get yourself things.” During the time I was on the sofa (about a fortnight) I do not remember that she missed a single day, and would sometimes bring with her a plateful of her own pudding, saying, “I’ve brought you some nice pudding to do you good.” It gave her the greatest pleasure to see me able to eat it. She could be fully trusted with plates or glasses, being as careful as a grown-up person in the way in which she carried them, and doing everything with perfect neatness and quietness.
About the same time she told me that she prayed for all her brothers and sisters, and a great many other people. I said, “Do you pray for Ninny and Diddy?” (two nurses).
She said, “No, they can take care of their selves.” I explained that they could not.
A day or two afterward I heard her praying as follows: “O Lord, do take care of Diddy, and make her thumb well. And do take care of Willy and Roly at school. Oh, do, do take care of them! Don’t let them be naughty, and learn to say bad words. Oh, do, do take care of them, Lord Jesus! And I thank you for all my nice things what you have given me. And I THANK YOU, O JESUS, THAT YOU WAS PUNISHED INSTEAD OF ME. Amen.”
About the 16th of February, 1861, Ada brought me the little book containing the “Fifty-two Tracts for Highways and Hedges.” She found the picture of the Ark, and said, “Tell me about that.”
I told her the story, and said that God would never punish people by sending a flood anymore, but that the next time He would send fire to punish wicked people.
She said, “Will everybody be burnt?”
She looked very grave and thoughtful for a moment, and then said, very quietly and decidedly, “I do love Jesus.”
She took the little book up with her to the nursery. She had carried it about with her for several days: ever since it had been in the house.
In the afternoon she was playing in the nursery, and looked well and merry. Her father told her that she must come down in the drawing room before dinner to see her Uncle and Aunt B. She was not at all fond of coming down to see strangers, but made no objection. At teatime she looked tired and unwell. Ashley asked her to run out and play with him in the passage.
She said, “I’m very tired, dear, but I’ll come for a little while, if you like.”
When she came to have her frock changed she said, “I’ve got two headaches, and something I don’t like in my throat; and I’m very tired, but I’d better go down.”
Her nurse said, “I think you had better not; you don’t seem quite well.” But she repeated, “Yes, I’d rather go down, because papa wishes it.”
When her frock was changed she came down into my room, looking so ill that I said to her, “I think you had better go to bed, and I will tell papa you were too tired to come.”
She answered, “I’m very tired, but papa would like me to come down, so I think I’d better.”
She went down, and almost immediately fell asleep on her father’s knee. She was then taken upstairs and put to bed. In two hours she was in high fever, and became delirious.
The next morning she seemed better, and when I asked her how she was, she said, “I’m quite well again now; but I should like to have my breakfast in bed.”
She had wished for several mornings before to have breakfast in bed, but had added, “I’d better not, because papa likes me to go down to prayers.”
On this morning she said, “Perhaps papa won’t mind if I have my breakfast in bed today.”
At this time a rash had come out on her face and hands. After breakfast, when the doctor came, he pronounced it to be scarlet fever.
Ashley was taken ill the same day, and both children were carried to a room at the top of the house, and kept entirely separate.
In a day or two, when Ada was better, she sent down to the nursery for the little book of “Tracts for Highways and Hedges.” This she made Adeline read to her constantly, and preferred it to any other book, though she had other books sent to her with colored pictures. The stories she liked best were “The Happy Night,” “The Happy Morning,” “The Woman at the Well,” “The Praying Mother,” “The Ravens,” “The Two Sisters,” and “Jesus blessing the Little Children.”
She constantly prayed, but not always aloud; and as soon as she was well enough to get out of bed she insisted upon kneeling on the floor to pray. She said, “I think it’s better to do so.”
She often prayed for Ashley—that he might be good and patient, and that Jesus would make him well. In the same ways she prayed for herself.
Whilst her throat was sore, it was touched once or twice a day with acid, and this she disliked extremely, and at first cried constantly when it was done, and was angry with the doctor who did it. Afterward she was extremely sorry, and said to Adeline many times, “Oh, I hope I shall go to Jesus tonight! then I shall have no more naughty tempers.”
After a little while she left off crying when her throat was touched, and as soon as the doctor came she opened her mouth to allow him to do it, without making any resistance.
This was explained some weeks later, when the sore throat returned, and it was necessary to touch it with caustic. As the doctor was going to do it, she said, “Wait a moment, till I have prayed to Jesus.” She then prayed, but not aloud, and, opening her mouth, allowed the whole to be done without making any complaint.
In the interval, before the return of the sore throat, she had become much better, and was able to get up and play with her toys. She would take Ashley by the hand, and lead him about, taking the greatest care of him, and would lend him her toys.
Whenever she was well enough she asked for her work, and was very anxious to do it properly. She worked at little presents for her friends, and talked much about her brothers and sisters. She said, “Dear S.!—he is my favorite brother: he prays so often, and he loves Jesus so much!”
One day she said, “I should like to see the nursery once more. I should just like to go and have one little peep, and then come up here again.”
She talked a great deal about her friends Gerty and Emily, and little Bessie B., at F—. She said, “Dear little Bessie!—she loved me so much! She used to put up her little face for me to kiss. She was such a sweet little thing!”
She remembered, too, the poor people at F—. Seeing her nurse with a warm jacket and shawl on, she said, “I think, Diddy, you’d better give that warm jacket and shawl to Mary Wheeler: it would keep her so warm, and she can’t buy things like you can.” This has been done, as she requested.
She was very much pleased at having a new set of pocket-handkerchiefs, which had been hemmed and marked by the children at T—School. She said, “How kind of the little girls to hem them and mark them for me! Perhaps Lucy P. did some.”
She looked forward very much to going back to T—, that she might go to church with her father, as he had promised her.
During the whole of her illness she suffered a good deal of discomfort in several ways, and had to submit to much that was disagreeable to her—for instance, having her ear syringed constantly. But she was invariably patient and submissive, and would say, whenever her nurse proposed to do anything which was painful to her, “Yes, darling!—just as you like.” To everything that was said she replied, “Yes, darling!” or “Yes, dearest!”
All who were with her were struck by her wonderful patience and sweetness. Dr. B., in speaking of her in a letter written afterward, said, “I do not presume to offer you any word of consolation, except to remind you how patiently and submissively your little girl bore all the disagreeable disturbance we were obliged to impose upon her.”
She received great Christian kindness from Mt. L., who attended her daily. He told her he had had a little girl who had died just at her age, and was gone to Jesus. This pleased her very much, and she said to her nurse, “When I go to Jesus, I shall see that little girl.”
It is a great cause for thankfulness that she should have been, during her illness, under the constant watchful care of a nurse who was not only devotedly attached to her, but who could, from the heart, speak to her of the Saviour she loved.
She still liked nothing so much as the “Fifty-two Tracts,” and asked to have them read over and over. The little hymns at the end of the tracts pleased her very much, especially the one,
“Here we suffer grief and pain.”
The fifth verse of this hymn was her favorite, and she soon knew it by heart, and constantly sang it: —
“Oh, how happy we shall be,
For the Saviour we shall see! —
Oh, that will be joyful!”
About four weeks after the beginning of her illness, a day was fixed for the removal of the children to Norwood. We had seen her at the window a few days before, looking bright and well, and more lovely than ever. When the time came for the removal (Thursday, March 21), she was not well enough to go, the sore throat having returned, though slightly. When the nurse, who was going with Ashley, wished her goodbye, she said to her, “I hope, darling, you will soon come too.”
Ada kissed her several times, and answered, “No, I shall never go to Norwood.”
From this time she became rapidly worse, and on Saturday we were told she was in danger. During the Friday she talked a great deal about her little sister Lucy, and asked whether she might go to see Lucy’s grave when she went back to T— Park, She talked still about her brothers and sisters, and was delighted to hear that Roly had just come from school. Speaking of her baby brother, she said, “Darling little fellow! I used to play with him, and he loved me so much.” But the one thought which seemed to fill her mind was that of Jesus.
During these last days, she seemed to be already in heaven, constantly singing her hymns, especially the one, “Around the throne of God in Heaven.”
She still wished the “Fifty-two Tracts” to be read to her, and “The Peep of Day,” in French; and when Adeline said to her, “Do you understand it?” she answered, “Oh, yes!—it’s about Jesus. Read me more about Jesus.”
She appeared intensely happy, her face beaming with joy and love. Nothing, indeed, that can be given by way of description could convey any idea of that happiness. As Adeline observed, it would be impossible to exaggerate it; none could see it without wonder.
Her mind remained clear till late on Sunday morning. She then sank rapidly, and seemed scarcely conscious; but about noon she looked up, with a radiant smile, and appeared to fix her eyes on something which gave her intense delight. She held Adeline’s hands, and said, “Sweetest, dearest Diddy!” and endeavored to make her look up also.
As her smile brightened, she said, “Pretty Lord!” —the word “pretty” always having been used by her to express something bright and glorious, connecting it, as regards persons only, with her idea of the Queen. Adeline said, “Do you see Jesus, darling? He is come to fetch you to be with Him.”
She made no answer, but turned her face with a smile of assent to Adeline, evidently understanding clearly what was said. She then looked up again with the same expression of joy, and afterward spoke no more, except to say “No” when offered some barley-water.
About three o’clock that afternoon she sweetly fell asleep in Jesus. It was on the day observed by many as the one upon which Jesus said, “Have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise?”
On the following Thursday she was laid by the side of Lucy, to wait for His appearing.
It seemed no strange thing that the Saviour whom she so loved had heard her prayer, and allowed her “to go to Him now.”
It was very sweet, six weeks afterward, to hear the testimony of little Ashley, not yet two years old. Hearing her name mentioned, he said, “Dear Ada lent Ashley saucers.” And, as we did not understand, he repeated, “Ada did. Dear Ada lent them to Ashley to play with.”
Adeline then recollected that some little cups and saucers, which we had sent upstairs to Ada, had pleased Ashley very much, and she had immediately given them up to him.
She had lived amongst us but three years and nine months—a short life; but in her case long enough to show the marvelous power of the grace of God; by means of which one scarcely more than a baby could overcome evil passions, and, surrounded as she was by all that was bright and pleasant in this world, could count it better to depart and to be with Christ.