MEMOIRS OF
Mrs. Rebecca Steward,

CONTAINING:

A FULL SKETCH OF HER LIFE,
WITH VARIOUS SELECTIONS FROM HER WRITINGS AND LETTERS;
ALSO CONTRIBUTIONS FROM BISHOP CAMPBELL, D.D.,
PROF. B. F. LEE, OF WILBERFORCE UNIVERSITY,
B. T. TANNER, D.D., EDITOR OF THE Christian Recorder,
REV. T. GOULD, MRS. ELIZABETH LLOYD, AND WM. STEWARD,

BY REV. T. G. STEWARD.

The motto I taught my boys was "Aim at the Sun! If you do not bring it down, you will shoot higher than if you had aimed at the earth."—Rebecca Steward.

"Her children shall rise up and call her blessed."

PUBLISHED AT THE
Publication Department of the A. M. E. Church,
No. 631 Pine St., Philadelphia, Pa.

1877.

Copyright, 1877, by Rev. T. G. Steward.

To DANIEL A. PAYNE, D.D.,

Senior Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church:

IN RECOGNITION OF HIS LEARNING, TALENTS AND PIETY:
AND AS A TESTIMONIAL TO HIS HIGH APPRECIATION
OF FEMALE EXCELLENCE, THIS LITTLE
VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY
INSCRIBED.

THE AUTHOR.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION

A life finished, is a proper subject for contemplation and study. To the Christian, whose eye is ever turning to the end of life, nothing can be more interesting than the life and death of the saints. It is never difficult to secure a large congregation to the funeral services of a well known Christian.

In looking upon a life closed, from a Christian standpoint, we see the Divine and the human blended. We see human nature moulded by divinely cast circumstances; we see character developed and displayed through these occasional circumstances. The "hidden man of the heart" is brought out, and we are able to see the inner through the outer life.

To this pleasant and profitable study, the reader of these pages is invited. He will be brought in contact with a life, humble and perhaps commonplace, but interesting at every step, because always earnest and real. He is invited to follow that life through a responsible, laborious and thorny pathway; and to see manifest, a character always glowing in brightness and stronger than any emergency.

He may learn the secret of that brightness and strength if he will. It is not of man but of God. He may hear a faith express itself before great difficulties (as I have often times) in these words: "Who art thou O great mountain? before Zerubbabel, thou shalt become a plain." Zech. IV. 7.

And, if his eyes are cleared to see the things of God, as were those of Elisha's servant, as he and his master stood in the midst of the Syrian hosts at Dothan, he will see, not the mountains round about full of horses and chariots of fire; but a heavenly light streaming down upon the toiler, and a crown of