d have finished my career in a
few days. And even when our lamented, darling babe lay struggling in the
very arms of death, though she was with him constantly, night and day,
she did not allow me to suffer one moment, for lack of her attentions. I
cannot write what I feel on this tender subject. But oh what kindness in
our Heavenly Father, that when her services were so much needed, her
health was preserved, and she had strength given her to perform her
arduous labors."

Mr. Boardman's life was now fast ebbing away. In September, 1830, he had
written a sort of farewell to his parents, brothers and sisters, from
which it appears that even then he was daily looking for the
summons--"Come up hither." He says of this letter that it is his last
farewell. He thanks God that he has his complaint--consumption--in its
mildest form. He enumerates many circumstances of mercy with which he is
favored; and adds: "But most of all for outward comfort, I have my
beloved wife, whose most untiring assiduity has mitigated many of my
pains, and who is ever prompt to render all the services that the purest
affection can dictate, or the greatest sufferings require. And it
deserves to be mentioned that she has never been so free from missionary
and family cares, or from attacks of illness, as during the last three
months, while I have most needed her kind and soothing attentions. Bless
the Lord oh my soul, and praise his name!"

"In thinking," he adds, "on the probability of dying soon, two or three
things occasion considerable unwillingness to meet the solemn event. One
is, the sore affliction I know it will occasion to my dear family,
especially my fond, too fond wife. Her heart will be well-nigh riven.
But I must leave her with Him who is anointed to heal the broken-hearted
and to bind up their wounds. My dear little son is too young to remember
me long, or to realize his loss. I have prayed for him many times, and
can leave him in my Heavenly Father's hands.... Then there are the
perishing heathens around me.... During the last ten years, I have
studied with more or less reference to being useful to the heathen. And
now, if just as I am beginning to be qualified to labor a little among
them my days are cut short, much of my study and preparation seems to
be in vain. But I chide myself for saying so or thinking so. If I had
done no good whatever here in Burmah, I ought to submit and be still
under the hand of God, ... but I trust He has m