as he directed me, and, oh!  Clara, I can find no words by which to describe to you what I saw.  It so far surpassed anything pertaining to this world that I am unable to give you any description of it.  I felt an intense desire to cross the narrow stream which separated me from the beautiful place.  I enquired of your father if I could not with him cross the stream and enter those golden gates, which I could plainly see before me.  He replied, ’No, my dear Alice, every one must cross this river alone.  You must go back for a brief period, as you have yet a mission to perform before taking your final leave of earth.  You must comfort the sorrowing heart of our child ’ere you leave her.  Tell her of the home which I now inherit, where there is also a place prepared for you and for her, if you so live as to be found worthy to enter those gates which you see before you.’  He then said, ’I must now leave you, and you must return to our Clara for a few brief days, when you will be summoned to rejoin me in yonder blissful abode.’  I turned to make some further remark to him, but he had gone from my sight, and I awoke with my mind deeply impressed by my dream.  But now,” added my mother, to me, “the bitterness of death is already past.  It is for you only that I grieve.  I trust however, that instead of grieving immoderately for your mother you will endeavor to discharge your duty in whatever position it may please God to place you, and so live that whenever you may be called from this world it may be to meet your mother in Heaven.  Since my illness my mind has been much exercised regarding my own state as a sinner; for be assured, Clara, that, in the near prospect of death, we find in ourselves much that is unworthy, which had before escaped our notice while in the enjoyment of health.  But I am now happy while I tell you that all is peace with me.  I now feel willing to depart whenever it is the will of my Heavenly Father to call me hence, and I feel confident that in a very few days I shall be summoned from earth.  I am sorry to see you grieve,” said my mother, for I was weeping bitterly; “endeavor to derive consolation from what I have said; and be thankful that when I leave you it will be to rejoin your dear father where there is neither sorrow nor sighing.”

Seeing that my tears agitated my mother, I succeeded in checking them, and assumed an air of composure, which I was far from feeling.  After the above conversation with me, my mother enjoyed a night of tranquil repose.  I now felt the certainty of her death, and prayed for strength to meet the sorrow which that event would bring to me.

So calm and peaceful were the last days of my mother’s life that we could hardly recognize the presence of the King of Terrors, till the damps of death were gathering upon her brow.  She died at sunset on a mild evening in September.  She had passed the day almost entirely free from pain.  Toward evening she slept for an hour; on waking, she said to me,—­