Since writing the above, we have seen a poem, entitled “Love’s Last Wish,” addressed to her husband, by Mrs. Judson when she thought herself near death, which expresses so beautifully the sentiment we have here attributed to her, that, did our limits permit, we would copy the whole.  We can only give an extract.

“Thou say’st I’m fading day by day,
And in thy face I read thy fears;
It would be hard to pass away
So soon, and leave thee to thy tears. 
I hoped to linger by thy side,
Until thy homeward call was given,
Then silent to my pillow glide,
And wake upon thy breast in heaven.

* * * * *

“I do not ask to be forgot;
I’ve read thy heart in every line,
And know that there one sacred spot,
Whate’er betide, will still be mine,
For death but lays its mystic spell
Upon affection’s earthliness,—­
I know that, though thou lov’st me well,
Thou lov’st thy sainted none the less.

* * * * *

And when at last we meet above,
Where marriage vows are never spoken,
We all shall form one chain of love,
Whose spirit-links can ne’er be broken.”

Of Mrs. Judson’s happiness in her married and missionary life, we feel bound to say a few words, because the tone of some articles, written since her death, would lead to the impression that, so far from having had any enjoyment as a wife, a mother, and a missionary, she had sacrificed not only all her literary aspirations, but her whole earthly happiness to her desire to benefit the heathen.  Thus one widely circulated article speaks of her mission-life as a “slow martyrdom of sacrifices and sorrows;” * * * as “filled with bitterness,”—­speaks, too, of the agony wrung out of her heart by suspense in regard to her husband’s fate, expressed in that exquisite piece to her mother, (page 334,) as “one hour of the years she suffered in Burmah.”  That the life of any faithful missionary is one of exile, toil, and privation, we are not disposed to deny.  The world knows it too well; and seeing that such toils are uncheered by the acquisition of fame or wealth—­the only reward it can appreciate—­the world considers the life of the missionary a living death, endured like martyrdom, only for the sake of its crown in the life to come.  But not in this light was their life considered by the noble three whose history we have sketched in this volume, nor by Dr. Judson.  The elevated sources of happiness opened even in this world to those who literally obey the command to forsake all for Christ, cast far into the shade all merely selfish enjoyment; while the pure domestic affections, and the bliss resulting from them, are as much the portion of the missionary, as of his favored brethren at home.  Who can read the letters of Dr. Judson, in Dr. Wayland’s memoir of him, or the exquisite letters of his widow found in this volume, without the conviction that the latter years of her life, privileged as they were with the high companionship of one so gifted and so dear as was her husband, and in the midst of social and domestic duties that brought their own exceeding great reward, were, of all her years, the richest and the happiest!