could bring back
again her tender, loving accents, or that strange earnestness and
"unction from the Holy One" with which they were uttered? Or who could
bring back again the awe-struck, responsive emotions that thrilled our
hearts? The simplest outline of this farewell talk is all that is now
practicable. Had we known what was coming, our memories would, no doubt,
have been rendered thereby sevenfold more retentive, and little that
fell from her lips would have been lost.

Her first point was the great variety of ways in which we can bear
witness for Christ. We can do it in private as well as in public; and it
is in the private spheres and familiar daily intercourse of life
that most of us are called to give this testimony, and to give it by
manifesting in this intercourse and in these retired spheres the spirit
of our Master. What an opportunity does the family, for example, afford
for constant and most effective witness-bearing! How a mother may honor
Christ in what she says to her children about Him and especially by the
manner in which she fulfils her every-day home duties! How a wife may
thus testify of Christ to her worldly, unconverted husband! And here she
spoke of one form of _public_ testimony which everybody might and ought
to give. "I can not (she said) see all the faces in this room but there
may be those here who have never confessed Christ before men by uniting
with His visible church. Let me tell any such who may be present that
they are grieving their Saviour by refusing to give Him this testimony
of their love and devotion."

In referring to this subject she remarked that young persons, after
having united with the church, sometimes felt greatly disheartened and
thought themselves the worst Christians in the world. But this was often
a very wrong feeling. Their sense of their own weakness and unworthiness
might come from the Holy Comforter; and we should be very careful how we
treat Him. His influence is a very tender, sacred thing, and, like the
sensitive plant, recoils at the touch of a rude hand. I have wanted, she
said, to speak _cheerful, comforting_ words to you to-day. It was the
particular desire of my husband this morning that I should do so. He
thought that young Christians, especially, needed much encouragement on
this point. It was a great thing to lead them to feel that they could
please their Master and be witnesses for Him in quiet, simple ways, and
that, too, every day of their lives