ight faces of her boys as they clustered affectionately
around her!

Time rolled by. The railroad passed through. A village sprang up, and
the land was ready to sell. She could keep enough for her own use, and
the boys could prepare for college. Thede and Nate went away to school.
The old home was kept bright and pleasant; friends, new settlers, came
in, and now there was visiting and social life.

Jerry stayed on the farm; Theodore became a civil engineer; Nate a
minister; Johnnie went into business. Theodore used to say: "Mother, as
I travel about, all the stones and the flowers make me think of you. I
catch sight of some rock, and stop to laugh over those blessed times."
Nate said: "Mother, when I am reading a psalm in the pulpit, there
always comes to me a picture of those old evenings, with you in the
rocking-chair by the firelight, and I hear all your voices again."
Johnnie wrote: "Mother, I think that every thing I have has come to me
through you." When Jerry, who remained faithful always, had listened to
his brothers, he put his arm about her, saying tenderly: "There will
never be any body like mother to me."

She died at sixty-five, very suddenly. Only a few hours before, she had
exclaimed, as her children all came home together: "There never were
such good boys as mine. You have repaid me a thousand-fold. God grant
you all happy homes." They bore her coffin to the grave themselves. They
would not let any other person touch it. In the evening they gathered
around the old hearth-stone in the sitting-room, and drew their chairs
together. No one spoke until Nate said, "Boys, let us pray;" and then,
all kneeling around her vacant chair, he prayed that the mantle of their
mother might fall upon them. They could ask nothing beyond that.

No Longer My Own.

In serving the Master I love,
In doing his bidding each day,
The sweetness of bondage I prove,
And sing, as I go on my way--
I never such freedom have known
As now I'm no longer my own.

His burden is easy to bear,
My own was a mountain of lead;
His yoke it is gladness to wear,
My own with my life-blood was red--
I never such gladness have known
As now I'm no longer my own.

Discharging the duties I owe
To household and neighbor of mine,
The beauty of bondage I know,
And count it as beauty divine--
I never such beauty have known
As now I'm no longer my own.