ber, and to it came
many old friends and veteran co-workers in the anti-slavery cause. The
services were in keeping with the record of the life they commemorated.
They were opened by that beautiful chant, "Thy will be done," followed
by a touching prayer from the Rev. Mr. Morrison, who then briefly
sketched the life of her who lay so still and beautiful before them. He
was followed by Elizur Wright, who, overcome by the memories with which
she was identified, memories of struggles, trials, perils, and triumphs,
that he stood for a moment unable to speak. Then, only partially
conquering his emotion, he told of what she did and what she was in
those times which tried the souls of the stoutest. "There is," said he,
"the courage of the mariner who buffets the angry waves. There is the
courage of the warrior who marches up to the cannon's mouth, coolly
pressing forward amid engines of destruction on every side. But hers
was a courage greater than theirs. She not only faced death at the
hands of stealthy assassins and howling mobs, in her loyalty to truth,
duty, and humanity, but she encountered unflinchingly the awful frowns
of the mighty consecrated leaders of society, the scoffs and sneers of
the multitude, the outstretched finger of scorn, and the whispered
mockery of pity, standing up for the lowest of the low. Nurtured in the
very bosom of slavery, by her own observation and thought, of one thing
she became certain,--that it was a false, cruel, accursed relation
between human beings. And to this conviction, from the very budding of
her womanhood, she was true; not the fear of poverty, obloquy, or death
could induce her to smother it. Neither wealth, nor fame, nor tyrant
fashion, nor all that the high position of her birth had to offer,
could bribe her to abate one syllable of her testimony against the
seductive system.... Let us hope that South Carolina will yet count
this noble, brave, excellent woman above all her past heroes. She it
was, more than all the rest of us put together, who called out what
was good and humane in the Christian church to take the part of the
slave, and deliver the proud State of her birth from the monster that
had preyed on its vitals for a century. I have no fitting words for a
life like hers. With a mind high and deep and broad enough to grasp
the relations of justice and mercy, and a heart warm enough to
sympathize with and cherish all that live, what a home she made! Words
cannot paint it.