and often in great discomfort walking a long way from her home that she might minister to those in need.

After visiting thus from house to house all day, she has frequently sewed till the neighborhood of midnight preparing garments for the destitute. If there are any two stars symbolizing activity and perseverance, it must have been under their conjunction that she was born. Growing old and growing indolent had no affinity in her. It should be borne in mind that almost the whole of this good work amongst us has been performed on borrowed time, since the period of three-score and ten had been reached,—a period which by universal consent is allowed and is usually taken for repose, for remission of all laborious effort. At the hour of her decease last Saturday morning, Mrs. Marsh lacked only thirteen days of being seventy-six.

Look at her record for the last year only. Besides being almoner of other comforts and delicacies for the sick and destitute, she distributed more than one thousand two hundred garments and other articles to the needy; more than two thousand religious tracts, papers, books, and the like; and made rising of three thousand visits; which, owing to lameness, was a number less by one thousand than that of the year previous.

It should be stated that in early life her constitution and her health seemed not to be firm; and that frequently her toils have been prosecuted amidst no small amount of weakness and even suffering. Hers is one of the cases going to show that nothing conduces more to longevity than benevolent industry.

It should also be stated that this perseverance in Christian toil did not stand connected with personal necessities. Children had urged her to withdraw from these labors, and at

more than one of their homes is an apartment called "Mother's Room," which has for years stood waiting for her. Loyalty to the Master demanded, as she believed, that all remaining strength should, no less than in former years, be devoted to him. Her life was, to its close, a protest against the prevailing spirit of self-indulgence. Though fully aware that the hour of departure hastened on, she could not bring herself to the pitiful work of merely saving her own soul. There are certain of woman's rights which she strenuously yet modestly vindicated,—her right to quiet benevolent activity, her right to be a ministering angel. You may have noticed that trees and plants, when they feel the approach of decay, sometimes seem to hasten their fruitage just at the last. She was aware that her time was short, and she hastened to make the most of it. And it would be an important omission if the statement were not made that in her views of duty and in her Christian sympathies there was no narrowness. This work of city evangelization was no pet employment. It proceeded from genuine principle, which is always expansive and liberalizing. Her heart went out with special interest to the Home Missionary Society, and yet more toward the foreign fields of the American Board.

Had our deceased friend the weakness—the comparatively pardonable weakness of vanity? Had the characteristic infirmity of old age come upon her,—a fondness for recounting earlier or more recent labors and successes? From what has been said, you who are strangers to her would hardly expect it, for you have noticed that it is the lighter ears of grain that hold their heads highest, and wave about most freely. Mrs.

Marsh was a branch so laden with fruit as to hang low; she was clothed with humility. She sat at the Master's feet. She did not talk about meekness or modesty,—she illustrated them. Moses probably did not know how his face shone as he came down from the mount; our friend seemed not to know how radiant hers was with benevolence; nor how busy were her own feet in errands of kindness.