estions; but among _men_, the case would be found a
rare one, where a presiding officer carried so largely and uniformly,
from first to last, the concurrent judgment and approval of his
compeers.
"I shall always call her to mind as among the remarkable women whom I
have had the good fortune to know. With no especial coveting of
notoriety, she was--as one might say--in the course of nature, or
rather--as I prefer to say--in the order of the Divine Providence,
called to occupy very responsible positions bearing largely on the
public weal; and she was not found wanting. Nay, she was found eminently
fit. All admitted it. And all find, now that she has been taken to her
rest, that they owe her every grateful and honored remembrance."
The Rev. W. J. Budington, D.D., who had known her activity and zeal in
the various positions she had been called to fill, pays the following
eloquent tribute to her memory:
"I had known Mrs. Stranahan chiefly, in common with the citizens of
Brooklyn, as the head of the 'Women's Relief Association,' and thus, as
the representative of the patriotism and Christian benevolence of the
Ladies of Brooklyn, in that great crisis of our national history which
drew forth all that was best in our countrymen and countrywomen, and
nowhere more than in our own city. Most naturally--_inevitably_, I may
say--she became the presiding officer of this most useful and efficient
Association. Possessed naturally of a strong mind, clear in her
perceptions, and logical in her courses of thought, she had, at the
outset of the struggle, the most decided convictions of duty, and
entered into the work of national conservation with a heartiness and
self-devotion, which, in a younger person, would have been called
enthusiasm, but which in her case was only the measure of an enlightened
Christianity and patriotism. She toiled untiringly, in season and out of
season, when others flagged, she supplied the lack by giving more time,
and redoubling her exertions; as the war wore wearily on, and disasters
came, enfeebling some, and confounding others, she rose to sublimer
efforts, and supplied the ranks of the true and faithful who gathered
round her, with the proper watchwords and fresh resources. I both
admired and wondered at her in this regard; and when success came,
crowning the labors and sacrifices of our people, her soul was less
filled with mere exultation than with sober thoughtfulness as to what
still remained to be
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