nd ample statement of
facts,--you may even join together in a brightly colored mosaic the
fairest impressions that can be given of the mind of another--his own
recorded thoughts and feelings--and yet they may fail to present the
individual. They are stiff and glaring, wanting the softening transition
of the intermediate parts and of attending circumstances.

And yet biography does sometimes succeed, not merely in raising a
monumental pile of historical statistics, and maintaining for the
friends of the departed the outlines of a character bright in their
remembrance; but in shaping forth to others a life-like semblance of
something good and fair, and distinct enough to live with us
thenceforward and be loved like a friend, though it be but a shadow.

Such has been the feeling with which we have read and re-read the volume
before us. We knew but slightly her who is the subject of it, and are
indebted to the memoir for any thing like a conception of the character;
consequently we can better judge of its probable effect upon other
minds. We pronounce it a portrait successfully taken--a piece of
uncommonly skillful biography. There is no gaudy exaggeration in it,--no
stiffness, no incompleteness. We see the individual character we are
invited to see, and in contemplating it, we have all along a feeling of
personal acquisition. We have found rare treasure; a true woman to be
admired, a daughter whose worth surpasses estimation, a friend to be
clasped with fervor to the heart, a lovely young Christian to be admired
and rejoiced over, and a self-sacrificing missionary to be held in
reverential remembrance. Unlike most that is written to commemorate the
dead, or that unvails the recesses of the human heart, this is a
cheerful book. It breathes throughout the air of a spring morning. As we
read it we inhale something as pure and fragrant as the wafted odor of

"----old cherry-trees,
Scented with blossoms."

We stand beneath a serene unclouded sky, and all around us is floating
music as enlivening as the song of birds, yet solemn as the strains of
the sanctuary. It is that of a life in unison from its childhood to its
close; rising indeed like "an unbroken hymn of praise to God." There is
no austerity in its piety, no levity in its gladness. It shows that
"virtue in herself is lovely," but if "goodness" is ever "awful," it is
not here in the company of this young happy Christian heart.

We have heard, sometimes, that a s