Account of Grandmother's last illness, conclusion through Sunday 8th (page 7)
Book 1, Page 53 ·1858
Transcription
A single sheet of lined paper closely written in faded brown ink, in cursive. The lower portion of the sheet is blank. Red staining is visible along the lower edge.
she listened — and when asked if she had heard said yes — seeming to receive comfort —
Sunday 8th. Grand Mother still living, without taking nourishment sufficient apparently to keep up life, in a stranger frame — never complaining but suffering a great deal, last night thought dying, this morning revived & quite collected, knowing every one about her! Mr Drayton I in his last visit interpreted, her prolonged life of suffering as God’s way of showing the perfecting power of His grace — “In your patience possess ye your souls” — a more powerful manifestation of His true religion than volumes of sermons — praying that it might not be in vain to those who were ^its witnesses.
AI Notes
Concluding (seventh) page of the eyewitness account of Henrietta Catherine Gaillard Barker’s last illness, written by her granddaughter Ellen Milliken Barker (later Mrs. Thomas Porcher). The final dated entry is Sunday 8th (i.e. Sunday Aug 8, 1858) — five days before Grandmother’s death on Friday Aug 13. Records her continuing decline without nourishment, her never-complaining patience, the night when she was thought dying, the morning revival when she ‘knew every one about her’, and the Rev. Mr. Drayton’s own pastoral interpretation of her long suffering as ‘God’s way of showing the perfecting power of His grace — In your patience possess ye your souls — a more powerful manifestation of His true religion than volumes of sermons’, with his prayer that her example might not be in vain to those who were its witnesses. The lower half of the sheet is blank; some red staining is visible at the lower edge.
The dated “Sunday 8th” is Sunday August 8, 1858 — five days before Grandmother’s death on Friday August 13. Mr Drayton’s text is Luke 21:19 (“In your patience possess ye your souls”). With this entry the seven-page account (pp. 047–053) closes; the outer folded face with its pencilled docket follows on page 054.