Standard," with
which I complied, and leaving my daughter to teach the school, I spent the
most of my time in traveling through the country to advance the interests
of that paper.

When I returned from Buffalo, she was complaining of poor health, nor was
it long before we saw that she was rapidly declining.

This beloved daughter, I had spared no pains nor money to educate and
qualify for teaching. I had encountered all the trials and difficulties
that every colored man meets, in his exertions to educate his family. I
had experienced enough to make me fear that I should not always be able to
get my children, into good schools, and therefore determined at whatever
cost, to educate this child thoroughly, that she might be able, not only
to provide for her own wants, but to teach her younger brothers and
sisters, should they be deprived of the advantages of a good school.
Well had she rewarded my labor; well had she realized all my fondest hopes
and expectations,--but alas! for human foresight and worldly wisdom! The
accomplishments and qualifications of a teacher were attained; and proudly
we looked for the achievement of our long-contemplated design. How hard to
believe that the fell destroyer was upon her track! Her education had
qualified her for teaching the sciences; but now I saw, that her faith in
the religion of the blessed Christ, was assisting her to teach her own
heart a lesson of patience, and quiet submission to the will of Him who
holds the issues of life,--and Oh, how difficult for us to learn the
solemn lesson, that her wasting form, her gradual sinking away, was
hourly setting before us.

Slowly her strength failed; she, however, saw our sorrowful anxiety, and
would try to relieve it with a cheerful appearance. One day perhaps she
would be able to walk about, which would revive our wavering hope; the
next she was prostrate and suffering; then hope died and we were sad! All
the spring time she languished; the summer came, the roses bloomed, and
the grain began to ripen, but she was wasting away. The orchard yielded
its golden harvest; the birds sang merrily on the trees, but a dark shadow
had fallen on our hearthstone, and a gloom, like the pall of death, rested
on our household. Her place at table was already vacant; no longer she
called the little ones about her to hear them repeat their tasks,--all of
which admonished us, that soon the bed where we could now see her, would
be vacated; and we should n