He was a Kentuckian, cut off from home and friends, and dying among
strangers. An almost imperceptible glance indicated that he wished me
to take up his Bible. The fast-stiffening lips whispered, "_Read_." I
read to him the Fourteenth Chapter of St. John, stopping frequently to
note if the faint breathing yet continued. Each time he would move the
cold fingers in a way that evidently meant "_go on_." After I had
finished the reading, he whispered, so faintly that I could just catch
the words, "_Rock of Ages_," and I softly sang the beautiful hymn.
Two years before I could not have done this so calmly. At first every
death among my patients seemed to me like a personal bereavement.
Trying to read or to sing by the bedsides of the dying, uncontrollable
tears and sobs would choke my voice. As I looked my last upon dead
faces, I would turn away shuddering and sobbing, for a time unfit for
duty. _Now_, my voice did not once fail or falter. Calmly I watched
the dying patient, and saw (as I had seen a hundred times before) the
gray shadow of death steal over the shrunken face, to be replaced at
the last by a light so beautiful that I could well believe it came
shining through "the gates ajar.
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