Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has borne? She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all” (Isaiah 49:15; Proverbs 31:26–29).
In every age the religion of Christianity has found many of its most devoted friends among the softer sex. Women ministered to the Saviour when He had scarcely a place to lay His head, and watched beside His cross when His own disciples forsook Him. They welcomed His resurrection from the grave, and to them he first appeared; and still, wherever the Gospel of salvation spreads, it will be found that female hearts, in the largest proportion, yield to the gentle sway of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so it is even in their dying expressions.
The following death-bed scenes of Christian mothers are but a few of the many last testimonies of faith which constitute a part of “the portable evidence of Christianity.” It is the concentrated light of earthly experience reflected from the future back upon the disc of time. It is at this moment of increasing spiritual awareness that the dying saint seems to receive a foretaste of the felicities of the redeemed, and is why we so often hallow the last words of the departing believer.
JANE RATCLIFFE
The following is an extract from Mrs. Ratcliffe’s own expressions on the solemn occasion of the closing scene of her death.
“I desire to die,” said she, “because I want the glorious presence of God, which I love and long for.
“I desire to die—because I would not live to offend so good a God, and grieve His Holy Spirit; for His loving-kindness is better than life, and He is abundant in mercy to me, and the fear of displeasing Him often lies as a heavy load upon my heart.
“With regard to my children, I am not troubled; for that God who has given them life and breath, and all they have, while I am living, can provide for them when I am dead. My God will be their God, if they be His; and if they be not, what comfort would it be for me to live to behold it? Life would be bitter to me if I should see them dishonour God, whom I so greatly love.”
“I fear not death—because it is an enemy that has been often vanquished, and because I am armed for it, and the weapons of my warfare are mighty through God, and I am assured of victory.
“I do not fear death for the pain of it; for I am persuaded I have endured as great pain in life as I shall find in death, and death will cure me of all sorts of pain. Besides, Christ died a terrible death, to the end that any kind of death might be blessed to me. And that God who has greatly loved me in life, will not neglect me in death; but will, by His Spirit, succour and strengthen me all the time of my combat.”
Thus, in her last sickness, she was relieved in the tenderest manner; for her spirit departed from the body, when it was thought she had only fallen asleep. She died in the year 1638.
ISABELLA GRAHAM
When the lethargy of death was creeping over this eminently pious woman, observing Mr. Bethune, her son-in-law looking at her with agitation, she was roused from her heaviness, and stretching her arms towards him and embracing him, she said, “My dear, dear son, I am going to leave you; I am going to my Saviour.”
“I know,” he replied, “that when you do go from us, it will be to the Saviour; but my dear mother, it may not be the Lord’s time now to call you to Himself.”
“Yes,” said she, “now is the time; and O, I could weep for sin.” Her words were accompanied with her tears.
“Have you any doubts, then, my dear friend?” asked Mrs. Chrystie.
“O, no,” replied Mrs. Graham, looking at the others in the room as they wept. “My dear children, I have no more doubt of going to my Saviour than if I were already in His arms; my guilt is all transferred; He has cancelled all I owed. Yet I could weep for sins against so good a God: it seems to me as if there must be weeping even in heaven for sin.”
She was now surrounded by many of her dear Christian friends, who watched her dying bed with affection and solicitude. On Tuesday afternoon, she slept with little intermission. This, said Dr. Mason, may be truly called “falling asleep in Jesus.” It was remarked by those who attended her, that all terror was taken away, and that death seemed here as an entrance into life. Her countenance was placid, and looked younger than before her illness.
At a quarter past twelve o’clock, being morning of the 27th of July, 1814, her spirit gently winged its flight from a mansion of clay to the realms of glory, while around the precious remnant of earth her family and friends stood weeping, yet elevated by the scene they were witnessing. After a silence of many minutes they kneeled by her bed, adored the goodness and the grace of God toward His departed child, and implored the Divine blessing on both the branches of her family as well as on all the Israel of God.
Thus she departed in peace, not trusting in her wisdom or virtue, like the philosophers of Greece and Rome, but afraid that her good works might have a wrong place in the estimate of her hope—her chief glory was that of “a sinner saved by grace.”
MRS. WOULD
The mother of the late Rev. Basil Would, of Bristol, England, lost her husband seven months before the birth of her child, a son. Her afflictions were much sanctified to her; and she delighted to bring up her child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. In her last illness, when unable to write, she dictated to the venerable clergyman, her pastor, her dying farewell, in which she says:—
“I am dying, and not afraid; I trust I am going to my Father’s house! I never was so happy! I would write to tell you what my soul feels in this blessed prospect, that I might bear my testimony to His grace, that I might refresh your soul who so often refreshed mine, and tell you what joy I feel in this prospect. I do not doubt of meeting you in heaven, and my dear child, too.”
The same evening she dictated the above letter, she said to her son, “O, I am very happy; I am going to my mansion in the skies’ I shall soon be there, and O, I shall be glad to receive you to it! You shall come in, to go out no more! If ever you have a family, tell your children they had a grandmother who feared God, and found comfort of it on her death-bed; and tell your partner I shall be happy to see her in heaven. Son, I exhort you to preach the Gospel, preach it faithfully and boldly; fear not the face of man; endeavour to put in a word of comfort to the humble believer, to poor week souls. I heartily wish you success; may you be useful to the souls of many!”
Towards the conclusion of that evening she addressed her son in words which he delighted to repeat; when, after speaking of the boundless love of Christ and His salvation, she added, “It is a glorious salvation—a free, unmerited salvation—a full, complete salvation—a perfect, eternal salvation; it is a deliverance from every enemy; it is a supply of every want; it is all I can now wish for in death, it is all I shall want in eternity.”
Thus did this excellent mother breathe out her soul for a few days more, till she was peacefully translated from her couch of sickness to her eternal rest. Her beloved son’s name was last on her lips; and truly was her hope respecting him fulfilled—that hope which she expressed by repeating the words of a friend, who adopting the consolation offered to Monica respecting her son Augustine of Hippo, had said: “Go home and be at peace; the child of those tears can never perish.”
— Excerpts from “Death-Bed Scenes; Dying With And Without Religion: Designed To Illustrate The Truth And Power Of Christianity,” edited by Davis W. Clark, D. D., 1853.
