On the Rock: A Memoir of Alice B. Whitall

It has pleased our Heavenly Father to take home to Himself your dear “Aunt Alice” before you are old enough to understand all that you have lost in her j but may you never forget her sweet spiritual face, and the calm, heavenly look in her deep blue eyes as she bade you a loving farewell on that last Sabbath afternoon of her life on earth; and may the Holy Spirit ever keep fresh in your memory her last charges to you to trust in Jesus as your Saviour, and to meet her in heaven. You little know what you have lost in losing her prayers, her love, her tender sympathy, and gentle care and teaching. She took each of you into her heart, which had a mother’s capacity for loving, and earnestly longed that you might all be safely sheltered in the peaceful fold of the Good Shepherd.

May the record of her devotion to the cause of her dear Saviour stir in your hearts a desire to follow her, as she followed Christ!

LICE B. WHITALL was the youngest of three children — all daughters — and was born in Philadelphia on the nth of 6th mo., 1839. When she was six years of age, her parents removed to MUlville, New Jersey, where her father was managing partner of the glass-works. Here we can imagine the little blue-eyed and flaxenhaired Alice, her wee hand clasped tightly in that of her father, watching the making and packing of the many-sized glass bottles, or playing on the portico with her little dog Carlo or favourite pussy, and now and then employing her busy little fingers in dressing her canary’s cage with green and chickweed.

Alice was about ten years of age when her parents removed to reside again in Philadelphia, where they lived, spending several summers at a country residence near Norristown, until she was fourteen years

A old, when her father’s business required their removal to New York.

From her earliest infancy Alice had always been delicate, and could never be kept at school for more than a few months at a time, on account of distressing’ headaches, which often entirely unfitted her for study. In after years she spoke of her childhood as being fai from the happiest period of her life. Of a highly nervous temperament, she was continually haunted by thoughts of death, and at night fearful dreams would often be followed by long seasons of wakefulness. She said years after, in reference to this time, “No one can know what I suffered during those long nights, nor how I dreaded going to bed. I don’t think I ever felt entirely safe or comfortable unless mother would let me curl up myself to sleep in her arms. My first ideas of the joys of heaven were connected with ‘There shall be no night there.’”

On reading the life of Charlotte Bronte, she remarked that the account of her childhood was the only thing she had ever read which at all corresponded with her own. She said, “At night I was troubled by bad dreams, and even in the daytime the thought of death followed me like a spectre. How often have I stopped in a game of blind man’s buff, or some other childish sport, saying to myself, ‘Well it is of no use, we shall all have to die and be buried in the ground.’”

She was very sensitive and loving, and very imaginative. Many years afterward she confessed that dreaming day-dreams was one of her chief occupations when a child.

Naturally conscientious, she early acquired a habit of self-examination by taking her little rocking-chair and sitting down by her mother before bedtime, to think over her words and actions of the past day. Even when in her teens, and almost ashamed of anything so childish, she could not compose herself to sleep until she had received an answer to the question, “Have I been a good girl to-day?” She thus refers to this habit in a letter to her mother, written when on a visit to Millville, in 1857: —

“It is getting near bedtime, and I seem to need some one to kiss, and ask, ‘Have I been a good girl to-day?’ How those old times come back to me, when thou and I used to sit here in this very room together, just at twilight, and ‘think over.’ I am afraid I am not half as dutiful a daughter now, though if all the stories I hear about myself are true, I could not have been anything very wonderful then.”

On the first page of her journal, begun when she was fifteen years old, she thus states her reason for keeping it: —

“New York, 2d mo. 2d, 1855. My purpose in commencing a journal is to put down every day, or as often as I can, all my little sins as soon as committed, so that at the end of the week I can look back, and, by the aid of this little book, remember more distinctly how I have spent the time.

“It seems so hard for me to bridle my tongue, and still harder to control my feelings. Oh, that I might be worthy of myself; the longing is intense within me. But I can do nothing of myself; I am very weak, not worthy even to creep upon the dust; yet how conceited I am; how I rest in my own strength! Oh, to be able to do something, to make some sacrifice! But this is vain; I ought to be contented in performing those little everyday duties, which are so difficult because they are so small.”

The following extracts are from the pages of this journal: —

“2d mo. 4th. At times I have felt an humbling sense of my own unworthiness, and seen very clearly how wrong I am in many of my feelings and desires. That I may some day be enabled to serve God better, and love Him more, is my humble prayer. To-morrow is meeting-day, and I am so glad, for to go to meeting is, I think, my greatest pleasure; but I fear I do not always make the best use of my time there. I am too fond of just sitting still and feeling that quiet happiness, without thinking of my sins and transgressions.”

After mentioning some impatient words spoken to one of the family on the previous day, she says: —

“2d mo. 6th.... After tea H — — came with

C. T, and we spent quite a pleasant evening; but

I secretly felt very unhappy, for I had been doing wrong, and I knew it....

“This morning, when I arose, the sun was shining brightly;’ all nature seemed to praise God, but I could not; so I went about in that hardened indifference that is so terrible, not feeling exactly comfortable, still not feeling sorry. About ten o’clock I went with Carrie to Gurney’s to get her picture, and when we returned I lay down, not feeling very well. After dinner I went about feeling very unhappy, not actually sinning in word or action, still sinning greatly in my heart all the time.

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