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Madam Home - D D Home his life his mission

Towards the close of 1884, Home predicted to me that his malady was approaching a crisis, and that it would be long and painful. He described minutely all that would happen; and, in speaking of the increased sufferings through which he foresaw that he was about to pass, said,
"God, who sends the trial, knows better than we why He sends it; I trust myself wholly in His hands. I shall recover if no complication supervenes: if it does, His will be done. I am not anxious for you God will support you. I shall not suffer at the last."

All that he had predicted was realized even to the superhuman force God sent me. He suffered cruelly long and cruelly.

There were intervals of repose from pain, then increased suffering. These few words tell all that need be told of the story of eighteen months.

In June 1886, the complication of which he had foretold the danger supervened, and attacking the lungs, proved quickly fatal. The last three days we both knew that all was ended for us on earth. He retained full consciousness to the last; and resignation, an ineffable resignation illumined his features, as the thin thread that held the spirit to the body slowly parted.

His one thought was to inspire me with strength to survive him, and to make me feel that he was but gone a little way before me; and he spoke to me much of God's great goodness to us, and of friends in heaven.

They were around him; he saw them, named them, and stretched forth his hands to them with joy. He had ceased to suffer; death came to him, as he had predicted it would come, without a pang.

During these last hours, he seemed no more of this world; the soul, disengaged from all that was material, already anticipated its union with the Supreme Being and the life eternal. It was no dream, no hope to him, that life; he had prepared himself for it by his life on earth; and now, in this moment of a sublime and tranquil death, he saw it open bright before him, while slowly, painlessly, the last ties of spirit and body were gently loosed.