IN the early part of a certain little girl’s sickness she thought she would not get well. She asked her parents to forgive her for not being kind and obedient. Her father asked her how long she had been a Christian. She replied,
“Father, that Sunday evening, some weeks ago, when you urged me to give my heart to the Saviour; that night I gave my heart to the Lord. I have loved Him since, and tried to serve Him.”
She asked her father to pray with her. To her brothers and sisters she addressed words of comfort, and urged them, while in health, to come to the Saviour.
Ellen was taken sick Sunday morning, and died the next Thursday. During much of that time her bodily sufferings were severe, but her mind was calm, unclouded, peaceful, and happy.
“I am going home (I used to say “heaven,” but now I say “home”) to see Jesus. O, I’m so happy! I never was so happy in my life!” These were her most common expressions.
Once, when a number were standing around her bed, she looked at each, and said, “How I wish you were all as happy as I! My cup overflows. When I get home I will see Jesus.”
Her anticipations of her heavenly home were so bright that it was a great trial for her to stay here. She invariably shrank from the thought that she might get well. She would ask,
“Why does Jesus let me stay? Why don’t He take me home? I want to see my blessed Saviour.”
The morning before she died her aged grandmother came to see her. Ellen extended her hand and said, (her countenance radiant with joy,)
“O, grandmother, I am going home to see Jesus, and I shall see grandfather, too, and will tell him you are coming pretty soon!”
With some unsaved friends she labored with great earnestness. She would select portions of God’s Word for them to read, and would then press home the truth. To one of these friends she gave her Bible, and requested that some portion of it be read every day, attended by prayer.
She expressed a desire to see the pastor. When he came she said, “I am glad to see you, Mr. A. Jesus has forgiven my sins, and pretty soon I am going home. If Jesus had not forgiven my sins, O, what would I do! I wish you, Mr. A., to preach my funeral sermon from these words, ‘For me to live is Christ, to die is gain,’ especially the last part, ‘to die is gain.’”
When asked if she had any fears of death, she quickly replied,
“No, no! dying is but going home. I think I shall go home tonight, but if Jesus wants me to stay longer, I will wait. He will take me when He thinks best.”
When Mr. A. left she bade him goodbye, saying, “The next time I shall see you I will be in heaven.”
She often repeated her Sunday-school hymns, and tried to sing them; but it was difficult for her to sing, her disease being diphtheria.
“When I get to heaven,” she said, “I shall not have sore throat; I shall be all well and happy; then I can sing,
“I can see His kind look when He said,
Let the little ones come unto Me.”
The last scene, when she summoned the family around her dying bed, her countenance radiant as though she had already passed the portals, her expressions of thankfulness for having been instructed in the way of salvation, her kind admonitions to her brothers and sisters, her final farewell, will not be forgotten by those who witnessed it, though it would be difficult to describe it. She sank away gradually, peacefully, till her soul found rest in the bosom of her Saviour.
ML 03/30/1924