rmer condition; and recall very tenderly the scenes in
which they used to cluster round their patron-mother, hang on her
gracious words, and receive her benediction.

"Brethren, I am not dealing in romance, but in sober fact. The
night would be too short for a full enumeration of her worthy deeds.
Suffice it to say that they ended but with her life. The Sabbath
previous to her last sickness occupied her with a recent
institution--a Sunday-school for ignorant adults; and the evening
preceding the touch of death, found her at the side of a faithful
domestic, administering consolation to his wounded spirit.

"Such active benevolence could hardly be detected in company with
a niggardly temper. Wishes which cost nothing; pity which expires on
the lips; be ye warmed and be ye clothed, from a cold heart and an
unyielding gripe, never imprinted their disgraceful brand upon
Isabella Graham. What she urged upon others she exemplified in
herself. She kept a purse for God. Here, in obedience to his command,
she deposited the first-fruits of all her increase; and they were
sacred to his service, as in his providence he should call for them.
No shuffling pretences, no pitiful evasions, when a fair demand was
made upon the hallowed store; and no frigid affectation in determining
the quality of the demand. A sense of duty was the prompter, candor
the interpreter, and good sense the judge. Her disbursements were
proportioned to the value of the object, and were ready at a moment's
warning, to the very last farthing.* How pungent a reproof to those
ladies of opulence and fashion who sacrifice so largely to their
dissipation or their vanity, that they have nothing left for mouths
without food, and limbs without raiment! How far does it throw back
into the shade those men of prosperous enterprise and gilded state
who, in the hope of some additional lucre, have thousands and ten
thousands at their beck; but who, when asked for decent contributions
to what they themselves acknowledge to be all-important, turn away
with this hollow excuse, 'I cannot afford it.' Above all, how should
her example redden the faces of many who profess to belong to Christ;
to have received gratuitously from him what he procured for them at
the expense of his own blood, 'an inheritance incorruptible and
undefiled, and that fadeth not away;' and yet, in the midst of
abundance which he has lavished upon them, when the question is about
relieving his suffe