Such has been the feeling with which we have read and re-read the volume
before us. We knew but slightly her who is the subject of it, and are
indebted to the memoir for any thing like a conception of the character;
consequently we can better judge of its probable effect upon other
minds. We pronounce it a portrait successfully taken--a piece of
uncommonly skillful biography. There is no gaudy exaggeration in it,--no
stiffness, no incompleteness. We see the individual character we are
invited to see, and in contemplating it, we have all along a feeling of
personal acquisition. We have found rare treasure; a true woman to be
admired, a daughter whose worth surpasses estimation, a friend to be
clasped with fervor to the heart, a lovely young Christian to be admired
and rejoiced over, and a self-sacrificing missionary to be held in
reverential remembrance. Unlike most that is written to commemorate the
dead, or that unvails the recesses of the human heart, this is a
cheerful book. It breathes throughout the air of a spring morning. As we
read it we inhale something as pure and fragrant as the wafted odor of
"----old cherry-trees,
Scented with blossoms."
We stand beneath a serene unclouded sky, and all around us is floating
music as enlivening as the song of birds, yet solemn as the strains of
the sanctuary. It is that of a life in unison from its childhood to its
close; rising indeed like "an unbroken hymn of praise to God.
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