Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world' — 'I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.' These are the last passages from the Word of God which he hears on earth. Presently he says with entire peacefulness: 'I have passed an unworthy life, but I do not trust in my own righteousness — God is very gracious.' Yet again he seeks for comfort, and asks Bessie to repeat the first verses of Keble's hymn for the twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity, which he had transcribed for her during his sojourn at Simla, and now feels to be attuned in harmony with his own mind, so he hears: —
"Why should we faint and fear to live alone
Since all alone, so Heav'n has willed, we die;
Each in his hidden sphere of joy or woe Our hermit spirits dwell and range apart;
And well it is for us our God should feel Alone our secret throbbings — so our prayer May readier spring to Heaven.
These are the last lines of human poetry that fall upon his ear. He bids them all his final farewell, desiring them now to leave him, so that he may be alone at the end. His closing words to Bessie[1] — now to become an orphan — are to commend her to the care of her brother James, absent at Agra.
His daughters departed, he is alone with Hay, to whom he makes only one request, that his funeral
- ↑ On her own death-bed at Náini Tál, eleven years later, she evinced the sweet fortitude learnt from her father, and declared her assurance of rejoining him.
