Annie soon became fully sensible that she was not long for this world, but was perfectly calm and resigned.  She possessed that hope that alone can sustain the soul in sickness and suffering, when we feel that our hold upon earth is each day growing weaker, and eternity, vast, boundless, with all its untried scenes, with all its deep mysteries, and overwhelming interests, lies stretched out before us, when the soul feels that it must soon be called upon to enter upon those untried scenes, and to fathom the deep mysteries of that endless existence, and that it must go alone and unattended into the presence of its Maker, there to render up its account.  She felt that, although she was unworthy of God’s favor, yet Christ had shed his blood for her, and she trusted that her sins had been washed away by that blood, and her soul made meet for the heavenly inheritance.  She strove to console the grief of her parents, who were almost heartbroken at the thought of parting from their child.  She pointed them to that home beyond the grave, where they should be reunited never more to part; never more to suffer pain, or sorrow, or care; where tears are wiped from all eyes, and the ransomed spirit will be permitted to join with the heavenly host in singing praises to the Redeemer.

She bore her sufferings with sweet resignation.  As her bodily strength failed her mind seemed to expand, and her intellectual powers to grow higher.  Her love of the beautiful seemed also to increase.  The deep blue sky, when studded by a countless host of brilliant stars; the soft, fleecy clouds when reflecting the gorgeous hues of sunset; the music of the birds; the whispering of the breeze, making mysterious melody as it mingled with the rustling of the leaves; these, with a thousand other sweet but incomprehensible charms of nature, seemed to form the link that bound her soul to earth.

Gradually her strength failed; each day her fragile form became more attenuated, and her thin hand more transparent.  There was nothing terrible in the approach of death.  Nothing that was revolting to the most sensitive mind; but when we were summoned to stand around her dying bed, there was something so calm, so heavenly, so peaceful, in the expression of her countenance, that we all felt that it was indeed a privilege to witness the departure of her soul to the world of spirits, and we involuntarily exclaimed, “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.”

We All Do Perish Like the Leaf.

  One rosy cloud lay cradled
    In the chambers of the sky;
  Rock’d gently by the autumn winds,
    As they came sighing by;

  Touching, oh, so lightly,
    Each leaf on ev’ry tree,
  Yet wafting them in tinted show’rs,
    O’er mountain, hill, and lee.

  For autumn’s chilling finger
    Has touch’d them, by decay;
  And now the slightest zephyr’s wing
    Bears their frail form away: