How warm and true her friendship was!  How little of selfishness in all her intercourse with other women!  How well she loved to be of service to her friends!  How anxious that each should reach her highest possibilities of attainment!  I record with deepest sense of obligation the cordial, generous, sympathetic assistance of many kinds extended by her to me during our whole acquaintance.  To every earnest worker in any field she gladly “lent a hand,” rejoicing in all the successes of others as if they were her own.

But if weakness, or trouble, or sorrow of any sort or degree overtook one she straightway became as one of God’s own ministering spirits—­an angel of strength and consolation.  Always more eager, however, that souls should grow than that pain should cease.  Volumes could be made of her letters to friends in sorrow.  One tender monotone steals through them all,—­

  ’Come unto me, my kindred, I enfold you
    In an embrace to sufferers only known;
  Close to this heart I tenderly will hold you,
    Suppress no sigh, keep back no tear, no moan.

  “Thou Man of Sorrows, teach my lips that often
    Have told the sacred story of my woe,
  To speak of Thee till stony griefs I soften,
    Till hearts that know Thee not learn Thee to know.

  “Till peace takes place of storm and agitation,
    Till lying on the current of Thy will
  There shall be glorying in tribulation,
    And Christ Himself each empty heart shall fill.”

Few have the gift or the courage to deal faithfully yet lovingly with an erring soul, but she did not shrink back even from this service to those she loved.  I can bear witness to the wisdom, penetration, skill, and fidelity with which she probed a terribly wounded spirit, and then said with tender solemnity, “I think you need a great deal of good praying.”

O, “vanished hand,” still beckon to us from the Eternal Heights!  O, “voice that is still,” speak to us yet from the Shining Shore!

  “Still let thy mild rebuking stand
    Between us and the wrong,
  And thy dear memory serve to make
    Our faith in goodness strong.”

[1] See the poem in the appendix to Golden Hours, with the “Reply of the New Year,” written by Mrs. Prentiss.

[2] A clerical circle of New York.

[3] A Unitarian paper, published in New York.

[4] An association of ladies for providing garments and other needed articles in aid of families of Home and Foreign missionaries, especially of those connected in any way with their own congregation.  Such a circle is found in most of the American churches.

[5] The passage occurs in a letter to Madame Guyon, dated June 9, 1689.  For another extract from the same letter see appendix F, p. 557.

[6] On the Resurrection of Christ.