Dec. 31st 1883. Our dearly loved mother passed to the Heavenly rest after an affliction of 11 years duration. Up to the previous June when I visited her she still appeared the loving tender mother she had always been and I said it would be hard to part with her. The next time I went in September she had got so much more helpless and afflicted that my chief feeling was sorrow at her state and after my return to London my grief was unceasing night and day. She and dear father were subjects of earnest prayer and solicitude. Her departure assuaged my grief, a truth which I think all will understand in a daughter who knew well that her gentle spirit would at once wing its way to her Saviour’s bosom and find its true rest in heaven. In her, well blended the Christian, the wife, the mother. Beyond the sphere of home she did not wish to shine. Some few will remember her as an excellent neighbour ready to render aid in sickness either night or day.

It was a great loss to us as a family to be so early deprived of her help in the capacity she had to ably and industriously filled. Yet though it was all too early it is mete we should gratefully record the fact that she was spared to see us reach maturity and I her youngest child was happily married 1 ¾ years before her death. Much mercy is mixed with this to me, though it made the burden of home life fall more heavily on dear Father. Dear Ma’s memory will ever be fragrant to us and the patience with which her affliction was borne a standing witness to the promise “my Grace is sufficient for thee.” May we follow her as she followed Christ.

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