s,
steadfastly educating herself for a vocation to which she believed
herself called, though often afflicted with serious doubts as to whether
she, being an only daughter, could leave her parents.

In early life she became an earnest and efficient teacher in
Sunday-schools, her intellectual pursuits furnishing her with ever fresh
means of rendering her instruction interesting and useful to her
classes. She undoubtedly at the first considered this as a training for
the work to which, in time, she hoped to devote herself.

But this hope was destined to disappointment. One violent illness after
another finally destroyed her health, and she never quite recovered the
early tone of her system. Yet she worked on, doing good wherever the
means presented.

Soon afterwards she met with the great sorrow of her life. The young man
to whom she was soon to be married, between whom and herself the
strongest attachment existed, cemented by a mutual knowledge of noble
qualities, was suddenly snatched from her, and she became a widow in all
but the name.

This sorrow still more refined and beautified her character. By degrees
the sharpness of the grief wore away, and it became a sweet, though
saddened memory. Eight years after her loss, she became the wife of
Samuel C. Pomeroy, of Southampton, Massachusetts. "They were of kindred
feelings in life's great work, had suffered alike by early bereavement,
and were drawn together by that natural affinity which unites two lives
in one."

He had given up mercantile business in Western New York not long before,
and had returned to his early home to care for the declining years of
his aged parents. And this was the missionary work to which Mrs. Pomeroy
found herself appointed. She was welcomed heartily, and found her duties
rendered light by appreciation and affection.

Here, as elsewhere, Mrs. Pomeroy made herself actively useful beyond, as
well as within, her home. She performed duties of Sabbath School and
general religious instruction, that might be called arduous, especially
when added to her domestic cares and occupations. These, with other
labors, exhausted her strength and a protracted season of illness
followed.

From that time, 1850, for five or six years, she continued to suffer,
being most of the time very ill, her life often despaired of. During all
this season of peculiar trial she never lost her faith and courage, even
when her physicians gave no hope of her recovery, being