206 the missionary's grave. 



silent and deserted : a few fragments of mouldering 

 ruins that peeped through the wild luxuriance of 

 nature which encircled them, and a garden that 

 had outlived the hand of cultivation and formed 

 alliance with weeds and shrubs indigenous to the 

 clime, served only to point out where the place had 

 been ; while the remains of the Missionary reposed 

 in the humble grave amidst the solitude, where, with 

 the assistance of some of his attached followers, his 

 lone and bereaved widow had deposited them *. 



* This was the spot where that scene of sorrow took place, so 

 touchingly described by the widow, in a journal she had kept during 

 this season of her trial, and from which the following is an extract : — 

 " In consequence of the heat of the climate and the situation in 

 which I was placed, I was obliged to instruct the people to make 

 the coffin and dig the grave, as they knew not how to go about it. I 

 said I would direct them as well as I could, and they willingly set to 

 work. These were trying tasks for me at such a moment, but the 

 Lord hath promised not to lay more on his children than they are 

 able to bear. I could not get the coffin finished to-day. I made my 

 bed on the ground for the night in the same room with the body of my 

 deceased husband ; but in the night I was obliged to get up, and take 

 my poor children out. As soon as it was light the people returned to 

 work upon the coffin, and about eleven o'clock it was finished. I 

 appointed four young men (in whose hearts I trust the Lord had be- 

 gun a work of grace) to put the body into the coffin. I then took 

 my two fatherless infants by the hand, and followed the remains of 

 my beloved husband to the grave. I requested them to sing a hymn, 

 after which we prayed. While sitting at the edge of my husband's 

 grave, I thought that you, my far distant relatives, little knew what 

 I was undergoing ; but the remembrance that ' He who sticketh 

 closer than a brother ' saw me, and was able to support me, was my 

 stay and comfort," 



