I had once had visions of a land of rest, a paradise
of bliss, and countless crowds of happy souls, and rapturous songs, and
shouts of praise, and joyous meetings of loving and long parted friends
in realms of endless life and boundless blessedness; but all were gone.
A sullen gloom, a deathlike stupor, a horrible and unnatural paralysis
of hope had come in place of those sweet visions of celestial glories.
My only comfort was, that though I had ceased to believe in the divinity
of Christianity myself, _she_ had retained her faith, and had lived and
died in the enjoyment of its consolations.
9. We had a young woman that had lived with us, with the exception of
two short intervals, all the time we had been in America. She had come
to regard us as her natural guardians, and we had come to look on her as
one of our family. The second time she left us she caught a fever, and
returned to us in hopes that in her old and quiet home she would soon be
well again. We procured her medical aid, but the fever got worse. The
doctor lost hopes, and it soon began to be evident, that she was doomed
to a speedy death. I attended her during the last sad night of her
sufferings. I heard her moanings as her life drew slowly towards a
close. I wanted to comfort her, but I had lost the power.
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