ever received from God, and I think if all my future life is passed in
affliction this mercy alone should make me willingly, yea, cheerfully
and joyously, submit to the chastisements of the Lord."

During their stay in Philadelphia, she had hoped for her father's
recovery, but when, by the doctor's advice, they went to Long Branch,
and she saw how weak and ill he was, this hope forsook her, and she
describes her agony as something never to be effaced from her memory.
Doubtless this was intensified by her lone and friendless position.
They were in a tavern, without one human being to soothe them or
sympathize with them. "But," she writes, "let me here acknowledge the
mercy of that Being whose everlasting arms supported me in this hour of
suffering. After the first burst of grief I became calm, and felt an
assurance that He in whom I trusted would never leave nor forsake me,
and that I would have strength given me, even to the performance of the
last sad duties. But the end was not yet; the disease fluctuated, some
days arousing a gleam of hope, only to be extinguished by the next
day's weakness. Alas! I was compelled to see that death was certainly,
though slowly, approaching, and all feeling for my own suffering was
sunk in anxiety to contribute to my father's comfort, and smooth his
passage to the grave. And, blessed be God, I was not only able to
minister to many of his temporal wants, but permitted to strengthen his
hopes of a happy immortality. I prayed with him and read to him, and I
cannot recollect hearing an impatient expression from him during his
whole illness, or a wish that his sufferings might be lessened or
abridged. He often tried to conceal his bodily pain, and to soothe me
by every appearance of cheerful piety. Thus he lingered until the 6th
of August, when he grew visibly worse. Many incoherent expressions
escaped him, but even then how tenderly he spoke of me, I ever shall
remember.... About eight o'clock I moved him to his own bed, and,