Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission. Daniel C. Eddy
of an hour;
So soon our transient comforts fly,
And pleasures only bloom to die."
Soon after the death of her babe, Mrs. Newell discovered symptoms of the malady which soon carried her to an untimely grave. From the first, she had no hope of recovery. Several of her friends had died of the same disease; and when it fastened itself upon her system, she knew that her time had come. The slow, wasting consumption was on her frame, and her days were nearly run out. But the approach of death she viewed with perfect composure. Though far from home, far from all the endeared scenes of youth, from the roof which sheltered her in infancy, from the mother whose gentle hand guided her up to womanhood, she was tranquil. Death was only a dark shadow, which retreated before her as she advanced, and left her standing in the light of a cloudless day.
While on her dying pillow she read through the book of Job, and derived from its hallowed counsels much divine support and comfort. While contemplating the sufferings of that godly man, her own trials dwindled away, and she lost sight of her own anguish in the deeper woes, of another. Often did she ask, as she remembered what others had endured and thought what trials some had experienced—
"Shall I be carried to the skies
On flowery beds of ease,
While others fought to win the prize,
And sailed through bloody seas?"
Sometimes she wondered why she should be thus early taken away. She had left home and friends to labor for God in a heathen land; and why at the very onset he should call her to the grave, she could not understand. The great desire of her heart was to be the humble instrument in the conversion of sinners. She wished to win souls to Christ—to turn the attention of the dying heathen to the saving cross. Hence, when she found that, ere her work had fairly commenced, she was to be summoned away to her reward, torn from the arms of her husband, and removed beyond the province of toil, she failed to read the purpose of her Maker. All was gloom, and in calm submission she bowed her head to the coming storm. What was dark now she hoped to understand when the secrets of all hearts are known, and trusted that God was able to glorify himself as much in her death as in her life.
During her sickness she gave expression to the feelings of her heart, and proved to all around her that death had lost dominion over her; that the grave had secured no victory; and when she met the terrors of one and the silence of the other, it was as the conqueror meets his smitten foe. Her last words were, "How long, O Lord, how long?" and with this sentence on her lips she passed away.
Mrs. Newell died on Monday, the 30th of November, 1812, at the Isle of France, leaving her husband to labor alone for the conversion of the heathen. After the death of his wife Mr. Newell removed to Ceylon, and from thence to Bombay, where, after laboring a few years and doing his Master's work in tears and sorrow, he went down to his grave on the 17th of May, 1821.
The scene now closes. We have followed a devoted servant of Christ from youth to womanhood—from early childhood to an early grave. It is pleasant to contemplate such an example, to shed tears of gratitude over such a tomb. The name we pronounce deserves to be recorded in a more conspicuous place in the book of fame than any name which has gathered gory laurels on the wet field of carnage; she deserves a higher monument than rises over the resting-place of earth's proudest conqueror—a monument not of marble, nor of brass, nor of gold, but one which shall lift its summit until a halo of eternal light shall gather about it and gild it with the beams of glory. And such a monument she has. When the clouds and mists of earth are dissipated we shall see it, sinking its base deep as the darkness of a world of heathenism, and lifting its summit high as the throne of God.
Harriet Newell was the great proto-martyr of American missions. She fell wounded by death in the very vestibule of the sacred cause. Her memory belongs not to the body of men who sent her forth, not to the denomination to whose creed she had subscribed, but to the church—to the cause of missions. With the torch of Truth in her hand she led the way down into a valley of darkness, through which many have followed. Her work was short, her toil soon ended; but she fell, cheering, by her dying words and her high example, the missionaries of all coming time. She was the first, but not the only martyr. Heathen lands are dotted over with the graves of fallen Christians; missionary women sleep on almost every shore; and the bones of some are whitening in the fathomless depths of the ocean.
Never will the influence of the devoted woman whose life and death are here portrayed be estimated properly until the light of an eternal day shall shine on all the actions of men. We are to measure her glory, not by what she suffered, for others have suffered more than she did. But we must remember that she went out when the missionary enterprise was in its infancy—when even the best of men looked upon it with suspicion. The tide of opposition she dared to stem; and with no example, no predecessor from American shores, she went out to rend the veil of darkness which gathered over all the nations of the East.
Things have changed since then. Our missionaries go forth with the approval of all the good; and the odium which once attended such a life is swept away. It is to some extent a popular thing to be a missionary, although the work is still one of hardship and suffering. It is this fact which gathers such a splendor around the name of Harriet Newell, and invests her short, eventful life with such a charm. She went when no foot had trodden out the path, and was the first American missionary ever called to an eternal reward. While she slumbers in her grave, her name is mentioned with affection by a missionary church. And thus it should be. She has set us a glorious example; she has set an example to the church in every land and age; and her name will be mingled with the loved ones who are falling year by year; and if, when the glad millennium comes and the earth is converted to God, some crowns brighter than others shall be seen amid the throng of the ransomed, one of those crowns will be found upon the head of HARRIET NEWELL.
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