een the Lord.
* * * * *
Hardly had the news of her death left Dorset when there began to pour
in upon its stricken household a stream of the tenderest Christian
sympathy; nor did the stream cease until it had brought loving messages
from the remotest parts of the land. Her friends seemed overcome with
special wonder that she could have died, so vividly was she associated
in their thoughts with life and sunlight. For months, too, after the
return of the family to their city home, letters from far and near
continued to bear witness to the mingled emotions of sorrow and of
thanksgiving excited by her sudden departure from earth--sorrow for a
great personal loss; thanksgiving that she had gone to be forever with
the Lord. A little volume of selections from these varied testimonies
would form a very touching and precious tribute to her memory.
"The human heart," to use her own words, "was made by so delicate, so
cunning a hand, that it needs less than a breath to put it out of tune;
and an invisible touch, known only to its own consciousness, may set
all its silvery bells to ringing out a joyous chime. Happy he, thrice
blessed she, who is striving to hush its discords and to awaken its
harmonies by never so imperceptible a motion!" Surely, the triple
benediction belonged to her. Already tens of thousands, both young and
old, who never saw her face, but have been aided and cheered by her
writings, gladly call her "thrice blessed." May this story of her life
serve to increase their number and so to render her name dearer still.
Above all, may it help to inspire some other souls with her own
impassioned and adoring love to our Lord Jesus Christ.
[1] She was specially touched by the sudden decease of Mrs. Harriet
Woolsey Hodge, of Philadelphia, to whom both for her mother's and her
own sake she was warmly attached.
[2] J. Cleveland Cady, the distinguished architect.
[3] Mrs. Antoinette Donaghe died at Staunton, Va., April 14, 1882. Her
last years were passed amid great bodily sufferings, which she bore with
the patience of a saint. She was a woman of uncommon excellence, a true
Christian lady, and much endeared to a wide circle of friends in New
Haven, New York, and elsewhere. Her husband, Mr. James Donaghe, a most
worthy man, for many years a prominent citizen of New Haven, died on
the 1st of January, 1878. He and Mrs. Donaghe were among the original
members of the Church of the Cove
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