Unity Palmira West

Obituary The Christian Advocate March 20, 1879 WEST.--Almira, wife of George E. West, daughter of the late John Gilder, Esq., of Philadelphia, and sister of Rev. John Leonard Gilder, of New York East Conference, departed this life in Brooklyn January 19, 1879. When she was but a child she connected herself with the Union Methodist Episcopal Church, Philadelphia. With unswerving fidelity for over forty years she maintained the integrity of a Christian character. Her last illness, which was protracted and severe, she endured uncomplainingly and Christianly, and bore unequivocal testimony to the efficiency of divine grace to sustain and comfort under the most agonizing sufferings, and to afford the blessed assurance of a blissful future. She testified that death had no terror to her; it was but a change and continuation of life that Jesus took all her burdens and all her cares. After a night of great suffering she said, "I was wondering in the night why I had to suffer so long, and it was revealed to me that in this way I was to be made perfect, many texts were given to me that made it plain. "When unable to speak audibly she drew a sister close to her and faintly whispered, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." She spoke of her children with affection and solicitude, and hoped her prayers for them would be answered. Thus as melts the darkness away before the rosy light of the morning, so her purified spirit gently and sweetly glided away with the opening dawn of an eternal day.