I'm going to be married.'" It was a leaf out of her own life. She had
marked in one of her books of devotion a passage which, I imagine,
summed up her view of the whole matter: "A true Christian is neither
fond of life nor weary of it." She had no sentimental disgust with life,
but her overmastering desire was to see and be like her Lord, and death
was the entrance gate to that perfect vision. Only the opening of that
portal could bring the full answer to her prayer of years, "I beseech
Thee, show me Thy glory." In this attitude the messenger found her. I
will not dwell on the closing scenes.... It is pleasanter to turn from
that long, weary Sabbath, when nature in its perfect beauty and repose
seemed to mock the bitter agony of the death-chamber, to the hour when,
with the first full brightness of the morning, the silver cord was
loosed, and she was present with the Lord. Surely it was something more
than an accidental coincidence that, in the little "Daily Food," which
for nearly forty years had been her closet companion, the passage for
the 13th of August was: "I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me,
Write, blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: yea,
saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works
do follow them." That summer afternoon when she was laid to rest had a
brightness which was not all of the glories of the setting sun, as he
burst forth from the encircling clouds, and touched with his parting
splendor the gates of the grave. Nature, with its fulness of summer
life, was set in the key of the resurrection by the assurance of her
victory over death, and it was with a new and mighty sense of their
truth that we spoke over her ashes the words of the Apostle: "It is sown
in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, it
is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is
sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. O death, where is
thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"

So now, as then, _more_ even than then, since these months have given us
time to study the lesson of that life and the sources of its power, we
give thanks to God through Jesus Christ our Lord; thanks for the divine
processes which moulded a daughter of consolation; thanks for the
fountains of comfort opened by her along life's highways and which
continue to flow while she sleeps in Jesus; thanks for a good and
fruitful life ended "in the comm