Page:Romance & Reality 3.pdf/319

Rh away. I prayed as one without hope—one who feels her sin is too great to be forgiven. But God tempers justice with mercy—a new life rose up within me. I said, even at the eleventh hour there is hope: I said, surely the Saviour of the world is mine also. I thought upon the grave to which I was hastening, and it seemed to me peaceful as the bed of a child—'There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest.' I repented me of my worldly delusions, and strove to fix my thoughts above. Had I earlier made religion the guide of my way, I might even now be fulfilling the duties I have neglected, and looking forward in patience and faith. But it is too late; the last of my house, I am perishing as a leaf to which spring has denied her life. I have longed to die at home—to hear once more the words of prayer in my native tongue—and wonderfully has my wish been granted, when expectation there was none! I shall sleep in the green churchyard where I first learnt that death was in this world;—the soil will be familiar, and the air that of my home. "I am one-and-twenty to-morrow. Would, O God! that my years had been so spent as to