After the singing of these words, Mr. Pratt, according to the old country custom, returned thanks to the assembled friends in the name of the family, for their sympathy and aid in the burial of their dead.  The several members of the household each laid a floral offering upon the casket lid, and the body was lowered into the grave.  Dr. Vincent uttered the solemn words of committal to the dust, and Dr. Poor pronounced the parting blessing in the words, “The God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that Great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the Everlasting Covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.  Amen.”

Thus the valley of the shadow has been irradiated.  To those who have been permitted to participate in these closing scenes, it has seemed like standing at heaven’s gate.  The valley of the shadow has become a transfiguration mountain, where we have seen the Lord.

* * * * *

Hardly had the news of her death left Dorset when there began to pour in upon its stricken household a stream of the tenderest Christian sympathy; nor did the stream cease until it had brought loving messages from the remotest parts of the land.  Her friends seemed overcome with special wonder that she could have died, so vividly was she associated in their thoughts with life and sunlight.  For months, too, after the return of the family to their city home, letters from far and near continued to bear witness to the mingled emotions of sorrow and of thanksgiving excited by her sudden departure from earth—­sorrow for a great personal loss; thanksgiving that she had gone to be forever with the Lord.  A little volume of selections from these varied testimonies would form a very touching and precious tribute to her memory.

“The human heart,” to use her own words, “was made by so delicate, so cunning a hand, that it needs less than a breath to put it out of tune; and an invisible touch, known only to its own consciousness, may set all its silvery bells to ringing out a joyous chime.  Happy he, thrice blessed she, who is striving to hush its discords and to awaken its harmonies by never so imperceptible a motion!” Surely, the triple benediction belonged to her.  Already tens of thousands, both young and old, who never saw her face, but have been aided and cheered by her writings, gladly call her “thrice blessed.”  May this story of her life serve to increase their number and so to render her name dearer still.  Above all, may it help to inspire some other souls with her own impassioned and adoring love to our Lord Jesus Christ.

[1] She was specially touched by the sudden decease of Mrs. Harriet Woolsey Hodge, of Philadelphia, to whom both for her mother’s and her own sake she was warmly attached.

[2] J. Cleveland Cady, the distinguished architect.