Between 1813 and 1818 her four sisters died.  The last to go was Martha, Hannah’s trusty helpmeet and lieutenant in all her benevolent schemes, and her tender consoler in many a season of sickness.  Soon after this event Miss More’s long illness of seven years occurred.  Unable to give proper supervision to her servants, she was victimised in household matters in various ways.  Extravagance and misconduct at length gave rise to scandal; and at the representation of friends Miss More reluctantly decided to break up her establishment, and remove to another and smaller residence at Clifton.  It was with a sad heart that she left her charming dwelling; and as she glanced back into the beautiful garden, with its shady bowers, she exclaimed, “I am driven, like Eve, out of Paradise; but not, like Eve, by angels.”

She lived five and a half years at Clifton, tranquilly waiting for the end, and attending, as far as failing strength would permit, to the distribution of her charities, the work of her schools and the entertainment of friends.

Almost to the last she retained unimpaired the use of her faculties.  The intellectual vivacity of early days often reappeared.  During one of her illnesses some one remarked, in allusion to the struggle of the remnant of sin in a person recently awakened to the truth, “The old man dies hard!” “The old woman dies hard!” exclaimed the invalid.  At eighty-three she said, “I have too many petty cares at that age when the grasshopper is a burden.  I have many grasshoppers, and seem to have less time and more labour than ever.”

Her last days were spent almost entirely in prayer, invoking blessings on those around her and on the village work which lay so near her heart.  She said to a friend during her last illness, “To go to heaven, think what that is! to go to my Saviour who died that I might live!  Lord, humble me, subdue every evil temper in me.  May we meet in a robe of glory!  Through Christ’s merits alone can we be saved...  Lord, I believe—­I do believe with all the powers of my weak, sinful heart.  Lord Jesus, look down upon me from Thy holy habitation; strengthen my faith, and quicken me in my preparation.  Support me in that trying hour when I most need it!  It is a glorious thing to die!” No vanity or self-praise on the ground of her life’s labours ever found a place in her thoughts.  Some one began to speak of her good deeds.  “Talk not so vainly,” she exclaimed; “I utterly cast them from me, and fall low at the foot of the cross.”  She sank gradually, and without pain, and on September 7, 1833, quietly passed away.

There are few thoughtful students who will hesitate to rank Hannah More with the leading religious and educational reformers of the eighteenth century.  In essential matters she was a kindred spirit with Whitfield, Wesley, Raikes, and others, and worked, in the way marked out for her by God, for the regeneration of her country.