GRIFFING.--Yesterday morning, at two
o'clock, Mrs. Josephine S. Griffing departed to a higher life. A woman
of rare beauty of character, of uncommon executive capacity and
judgment, and ever inspired by a beautiful and self-sacrificing
charity, she had warm friends among the best men and women, eminent in
character, influence, and position, and a host of devoted friends also
among the poor and aged freed people, to whom for years she has been a
daily angel of mercy. Accomplished and cultivated, she has devoted
herself to the wants of the poorest of the poor, visiting their homes
and ministering to their wants with her own hands. She has disbursed
many thousands of dollars and a large amount of food and clothing
furnished by the Government and by private benevolence, and done all
wisely and well and for long periods of time without material fee or
reward.

Rarely, indeed, do we find such tender charity, such ability for
continuous labor, and such spiritual beauty of life as hers, and
her departure is no doubt the result of her too severe and
self-sacrificing career of good works.

From 10 A.M. to 4 P.M. to-day the remains may be seen by her many
friends at her late home, on Capitol Hill, and to-night her daughters
go with all that is mortal of a most tender and loving mother to the
family burial-place in her native town of Hebron, Conn.--_Washington
Chronicle._

MRS. GRIFFING TO CATHARINE F. STEBBINS.

WASHINGTON, _June 27, 1870_.

MY DEAR MRS. STEBBINS:--Yours so kind and interesting came duly, and I
thank you. I am sure you have seen how some _genius_, greater, more
powerful than myself control me and forbids me to seek enjoyment in
human friendships. If you comprehend my life, you will pardon long
silence of the _lips_, and join me in the prayer, that the poor all
taken into "Abraham's bosom," I may _enjoy_ those I love, in heaven. I
am pained when I think that not only _you_, but my dear father in his
affliction, has been neglected, for it is now four long weeks since I
have written a word of love and consolation to him. But the days are
so full of work, and the nights of thinking, that all my vitality
seems to be in requisition, and I sometimes think there is no reserve
force left in me. Oh, how I wish our Christianity would be true to
itself, and take to its heart the great questions of humanity, then
would I turn over a precious few of the starving old people now