Three Pillows

When I visited one day, as he was dying, my beloved friend Benjamin Parsons, I said, "How are you today, Sir?" He said, "My head is resting very sweetly on three pillows—infinite power, infinite love, and infinite wisdom."

Preaching in the Canterbury Hall, in Brighton, I mentioned this some time since; and many months after I was requested to call upon a poor but holy young woman, apparently dying.

She said, "I felt I must see you before I died. I heard you tell the story of Benjamin Parsons and his three pillows; and when I went through a surgical operation, and it was very cruel, I was leaning my head on pillows, and as they were taking them away I said, 'May I keep them?' The surgeon said, 'No, my dear, we must take them away.' 'But,' said I, 'you cannot take away Benjamin Parsons’s three pillows. I can lay my head on infinite power, infinite love, and infinite wisdom.'"

~Paxton Hood, in "Dark Sayings on a Harp," 1865

~End Quote