The Power of Faith / Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham.

by Isabella Graham

CHAPTER XII.

CLOSING LABORS FOR THE POOR — SICKNESS AND DEATH.

DURING the last two years of her life, Mrs. Graham found her strength inadequate to so extensive a course of visiting the poor as formerly; there were some distressed families, however, that experienced her kind attentions to the last. She would occasionally accompany the Rev. Mr. Stanford on his visits to the state-prison, hospital, and to the Magdalen house. This gentleman was the stated preacher employed by "the Society for the Support of the Gospel among the Poor," and devoted his time to preaching in the almshouse, hospital, state-prison, debtors'-prison, etc., with great assiduity and acceptance.

Mrs. Graham now spent much of her time in her room, devoted to meditation, prayer, and reading the Scriptures; she seemed to be weaning from earth and preparing for heaven. Prayer was that sweet breath of her soul which brought stability to her life. Genuine humility was obvious in all her sentiments and deportment. Religious friends prized her conversation, counsel, and friendship; sometimes they would venture on a compliment to her superior attainments, but always experienced a decided rebuke. To her friend Colonel L——, who expressed a wish to be such a character as she was, she quickly replied with an air of mingled pleasantry and censure, "Get thee behind me, Satan." To a female friend who said, "If I were only sure at last of being admitted to a place

at your feet I should feel happy." "Hush, hush," replied Mrs. Graham, "There is ONE SAVIOUR." Thus she was always careful to give her divine Redeemer the whole glory of her salvation.

This example of humility, self-denial, and sensibility to the imperfection of her conduct, is the more to be valued, as it is so difficult to be followed. Flattery is too commonly practised; and there is no sufficient guard against its dangerous consequences, except a constant and humbling recognition of the spirituality of the law of God, and our lamentable deficiency in fulfilling it. Pride was not made for man: "I have seen an end of all perfection," said the Psalmist, "but thy commandment is exceeding broad." It was by cherishing this sentiment, by studying her Bible, by searching her heart and its motives, and above all, by grace accorded of heaven in answer to her prayers, that Mrs. Graham was enabled to maintain such meekness of spirit, such an uniformity of Christian character throughout her life. May all who read her history be directed to the same sources of true peace and genuine happiness.

In the spring of 1814 she was requested to unite with some ladies in forming a society for the promotion of industry among the poor. This was the last act in which she appeared before the public. A petition, signed by about thirty ladies, was presented to the corporation of New York, praying that they would assign them a building in which work might be prepared and given out to the industrious poor, who being paid for their labor, might be saved the necessity of begging, and at the same time cherish habits of industry and self-respect. The corporation having returned

a favorable answer, and provided a house, a meeting of the Society was held, and Mrs. Graham once more was called to the chair. It was the last time she was to preside at the formation of a new society. Her articulation, once strong and clear, was now observed to have become more feeble. The ladies present listened to her with affectionate attention; her voice broke upon the ear as a pleasant sound that was passing away. She consented to have her name inserted on the list of managers, and to give what assistance her age would permit in forwarding so beneficent a work. Although it pleased God that she should cease from her labors before the House of Industry was opened, yet the work was carried on by others and prospered. Between four and five hundred women were employed and paid during the following winter. The corporation declared in strong terms their approbation of the result, and enlarged their donation, with a view to promote the same undertaking for the succeeding winter.

In the month of May, 1814, a report was received from Mr. Stephen Prust of Bristol, in England, of the Society for establishing Adult-schools. Mrs. Graham was so delighted with a perusal of it, as immediately to undertake the formation of such a school in the village of Greenwich. She called on the young people who were at work in some neighboring manufactories, and requested them to attend her for this purpose every Sabbath morning at eight o'clock. This was kept up after her decease as a Sunday-school, and consisted of nearly eighty scholars. She was translated from this work of faith on earth, to engage in the sublimer work of praise in heaven.

For some weeks previous to her last illness she was favored with unusual health and much enjoyment of religion; she appeared to have sweet exercises and communion in attending on all God's ordinances and appointed means of grace. She was also greatly refreshed in spirit by the success of Missionary and Bible Societies, and used to speak with much affection of Mr. Gordon, Mr. Lee, Mr. May, and Dr. Morrison, with whom she had been acquainted when in New York, on their way to missionary stations in India and China.

Mrs. Graham was very partial to the works of Dr. John Owen, Rev. William Romaine, and Rev. John Newton, and read them with pleasure and profit. One day she remarked to Mr. B——, that she preferred the ancient writers on theology to the modern, because they dealt more in italics. "Dear mother," he replied, "what religion can there be in italics?" "You know," said she, "that old writers expected credit for the doctrines they taught, by proving them from the word of God to be correct: they inserted the scripture passages in italics, and their works have been sometimes one-half in italics. Modern writers on theology, on the contrary, give us a long train of reasoning to persuade us to their opinions, but very little in italics." This remark of hers has great force, and deserves the serious attention of those who write and those who read on theological subjects.

On the two Sabbaths preceding her last illness she joined in communion at the Lord's table. On the 10th of July, 1814, at Greenwich, and on the 17th at her own church in Cedar-street. On each week preceding these seasons she attended three evenings on religious exercises; on Thursdays at the Orphan Asylum,

on Friday evenings the preparation sermons, and on Saturday evenings at the prayer-meetings. She appeared lively, and expressed comfort in those religious seasons, and continued actively useful until the very day on which her illness commenced.

On the morning of the 17th she attended the Sabbath-school with her daughter and grandchildren. Thus the Lord was pleased to direct that she should lead her children's children into the walks of usefulness before she took her flight to heaven, and impose a pleasing obligation on them that they should follow her steps. Of the same date is the last meditation in her diary.

"COMMUNION SABBATH, July 17, 1814.

"'Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls,' 1 Peter, 1:8, 9.

"I had requested to be brought to my Lord's banqueting-house, and to be feasted with love this day. I ate the bread and drank the wine, in the faith that I ate the flesh and drank the blood of the Son of man, and dwelt in him and he in me. Took a close view of my familiar friend Death, accompanied with the presence of my Saviour, his sensible presence. I cannot look at it without this; it is my only petition concerning it. I have had desires relative to certain circumstances, but they are nearly gone. It is my sincere desire that God may be glorified, and he knows best how and by what circumstances. I retain my one petition,

"Only to me thy countenance show,
I ask no more the Jordan through."

Thus she arose from her Master's table, was called to gird on her armor for a combat with the king of terrors, and came off more than conqueror, through Him who loved her.

On Monday she appeared in perfect health, and visited and gave religious instruction to the orphans in the asylum.

On Tuesday, the 19th of July, she complained of not feeling well, and kept her room; on Thursday her disorder proved to be a cholera-morbus, and her children sent for a physician. She thought this attack was slighter than in former seasons. On Saturday, however, she requested that Mrs. Chrystie might be sent for; this alarmed Mrs. B——, knowing there existed an understanding between those two friends, that one should attend the dying-bed of the other, Mrs. Chrystie was a very dear friend of Mrs. Graham. For upwards of twenty-four years they had loved each other, feeling reciprocal sympathy in their joys and their sorrows; the hope of faith was the consolation of both, and oftentimes it had been their delightful employment to interchange their expressions of affection towards Him whom having not seen, they loved, and in whom, though they saw him not, yet believing on him, they rejoiced with joy unspeakable and full of glory. On Mrs. Chrystie's entering the chamber of her friend, Mrs. Graham welcomed her with a sweet expressive smile, seeming to say, "I am going to get the start of you, I am called home before you; it will be your office to fulfil our engagement." When she sat by her bedside, Mrs. Graham said, "Your face is very pleasant to me, my friend."

During Saturday night, a lethargy appeared to be overpowering her frame. On Sabbath morning she was disposed to constant slumber; observing Mr. B—— looking at her with agitation, she was roused from her heaviness, and stretching her arms towards him and embracing him, she said, "My dear, dear son, I am going to leave you; I am going to my Saviour." "I know," he replied, "that when you do go from us, it will be to the Saviour; but, my dear mother, it may not be the Lord's time now to call you to himself." "Yes," said she, "now is the time; and Oh, I could weep for sin." Her words were accompanied with her tears. "Have you any doubts, then, my dear friend?" asked Mrs. Chrystie. "Oh no," replied Mrs. Graham; and looking at Mr. and Mrs. B—— as they wept, "My dear children, I have no more doubt of going to my Saviour, than if I were already in his arms; my guilt is all transferred; he has cancelled all I owed. Yet I could weep for sins against so good a God: it seems to me as if there must be weeping even in heaven for sin."

After this she entered into conversation with her friends, mentioning portions of scripture and favorite hymns which had been subjects of much comfort and joy to her. Some of these she had transcribed into a little book, calling them her "victuals" prepared for crossing over Jordan; she committed them to memory, and often called them to remembrance as her songs in the night when sleep had deserted her. She then got Mr. B—— to read to her some of these portions, especially the eighty-second hymn of Newton's third book:

"Let us love, and sing, and wonder;
Let us praise the Saviour's name:
He has hushed the law's loud thunder,
He has quenched mount Sinai's flame:
He has washed us with his blood,
He has brought us nigh to God," etc.

Mrs. Graham then fell asleep, nor did she awaken until the voice of the Rev. Dr. Mason roused her. They had a very affectionate interview, which he has partly described in the excellent sermon he delivered after her decease. She expressed to him her hope as founded altogether on the redemption that is in Jesus Christ: were she left to depend on the merit of the best action she had ever performed, that would be only a source of despair. She repeated to him, as her view of salvation, the fourth verse of the same hymn:

"Let us wonder: grace and justice
Join, and point at mercy's store;
When, through grace, in Christ our trust is,
Justice smiles and asks no more;
He who washed us with his blood,
Has secured our way to God."

Having asked Dr. Mason to pray with her, he inquired if there was any particular request she had to make of God by him; she replied, that God would direct: then as he kneeled, she put up her hands, and raising her eyes towards heaven, breathed this short but expressive petition, "Lord, lead thy servant in prayer."

After Dr. Mason had taken his leave, she again fell into a deep sleep. Her physicians still expressed a hope of her recovery, as her pulse was regular and the violence of her disease had abated. One of them, however, declared his opinion that his poor drugs would prove of little avail against her own ardent

prayers to depart and be with Christ, which was far better for her than a return to a dying world.

On Monday the Rev. Mr. Rowan prayed with her, and to him she expressed also the tranquillity of her mind, and the steadfastness of her hope, through Christ, of eternal felicity.

Her lethargy increased; at intervals from sleep she would occasionally assure her daughter, Mrs. B——, that all was well; and when she could rouse herself only to say one word at a time, that one word, accompanied with a smile, was, "Peace." From her there was a peculiar emphasis in this expression of the state of her mind: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you," had been a favorite portion of scripture with her, and a promise, the fulfilment of which was her earnest prayer to the God who made it. She also occasionally asked Mr. B—— to pray with her, even when she could only articulate, as she looked at him, "Pray." She was now surrounded by many of her dear Christian friends, who watched her dying-bed with affection and solicitude. On Tuesday afternoon she slept with little intermission. This, said Dr. Mason, may be truly called "falling asleep in Jesus." It was remarked by those who attended her, that all terror was taken away, and that death seemed here as an entrance into life. Her countenance was placid, and looked younger than before her illness.

At a quarter past twelve o'clock, being the morning of the 27th of July, 1814, her spirit gently winged its flight from a mansion of clay to the realms of glory, while around the precious remnant of earth her family and friends stood weeping, yet elevated by the

scene they were witnessing. After a silence of many minutes, they kneeled by her bed, adored the goodness and the grace of God towards his departed child, and implored the divine blessing on both the branches of her family, as well as on all the Israel of God.

Thus she departed in peace, not trusting in her wisdom or virtue, like the philosophers of Greece and Rome; not even like Addison, calling on the profligate to see a good man die; but like Howard, afraid that her good works might have a wrong place in the estimate of her hope, her chief glory was that of "a sinner saved by grace."*

*This was Howard's epitaph, dictated by himself.

After such examples, who will dare to charge the doctrines of the cross of Christ with licentiousness? Here are two instances of persons, to whose good works the world have cheerfully borne testimony, who lived and died in the profession of these doctrines. It was faith that first purified their hearts, and so the stream of action from these fountains became pure also. Had not Christ died and risen again, all the powers of man could never have produced such lives of benevolence, nor a death so full of contrition, yet so embalmed with hope. Hallelujah, "unto Him who loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father: to him be glory and dominion, for ever and ever. Amen."

At the next weekly prayer-meeting which she had usually attended, the circumstances of her death were made subjects of improvement. On the 16th of July she was a worshipper with her brethren and sisters

there, and on the evening of the 30th they were called to consider her by faith as in the immediate presence of her God, among "the spirits of the just made perfect." The services of that evening were closed with the following hymn from Dobell's collection, which is beautifully descriptive of her happy change:

"'Tis finished! the conflict is past,
The heaven-born spirit is fled;
Her wish is accomplished at last,
And now she's entombed with the dead.
The months of affliction are o'er,
The days and the nights of distress,
We see her in anguish no more —
She's gained her happy release.
No sickness, or sorrow, or pain,
Shall ever disquiet her now;
For death to her spirit was gain,
Since Christ was her life when below.
Her soul has now taken its flight
To mansions of glory above,
To mingle with angels of light,
And dwell in the kingdom of love.
The victory now is obtained;
She's gone her dear Saviour to see;
Her wishes she fully has gained —
She's now where she longed to be.
The coffin, the shroud, and the grave
To her were no objects of dread;
On Him who is mighty to save,
Her soul was with confidence stayed.
Then let us forbear to complain,
That she is now gone from our sight;
We soon shall behold her again,
With new and redoubled delight."

Mrs. Graham's death created a strong sensation in the public mind. Magistrates of the city were careful to express their sense of the public loss sustained, and many charitable institutions paid affectionate tributes to her memory. Several clergymen also made her death the subject of their discourses, among whom was her beloved pastor, Dr. JOHN M. MASON, who, on Sabbath evening, Aug. 14, delivered the well-known powerful sermon, "CHRISTIAN MOURNING," from 1 Thess. 4:13, 14: "I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him."

Contrasting the consolations afforded to the Christian with the darkness and doubt of the pagan or infidel; dwelling on the Christian's death as "sleeping in Jesus;" his immediate entrance into bliss, and his glorious resurrection and reigning with Christ in the judgment, he thus proceeds:

"In this faith the apostles labored and the martyrs bled. Ages have elapsed and it is still the same. It is not a distant wonder; not a brilliant vision; but a solid and present reality, under the power of which at this moment, while the words are on my lips, Christians, in various parts of the world, are closing their eyes to sleep in Jesus. It has come home to our own business and bosoms. It has chosen our houses to be the scene of its miracles. But rarely does it fall to the lot of human eyes to witness so high a display of its value and virtue, as was witnessed in that blessed woman whose entrance into the joy of her Lord has occasioned our assembling this evening.

"As we are commanded to be followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises, we should have their example before us, that we may learn to imbibe their spirit, to imitate their graces, and be ready for their reward. With this view, permit me to lay before you some brief recollections of our deceased friend.

"It is not my intention to relate the history of her life. That will be a proper task for biography. I design merely to state a few leading facts, and to sketch such outlines of character as may show to those who knew her not, what manner of person she was in all holy conversation and godliness. Those who knew her best require no such remembrancer, and will be able, from their own observation, to supply its defects.

"ISABELLA MARSHALL, known to us as Mrs. GRAHAM, received from nature qualities which, in circumstances favorable to their development, do not allow their possessor to pass through life unnoticed and inefficient.

"An intellect strong, prompt, and inquisitive — a temper open, generous, cheerful, ardent — a heart replete with tenderness, and alive to every social affection and every benevolent impulse — a spirit at once enterprising and persevering — the whole crowned with that rare and inestimable endowment, good sense — were materials which required only skilful management to fit her for adorning and dignifying any female station. With that sort of cultivation which the world most admires, and those opportunities which attend upon rank and fortune, she might have shone in the circles of the great without forfeiting

the esteem of the good. Or had her lot fallen among the literary unbelievers of the continent, she might have figured in the sphere of the Voltaires, the Duffauds, and the other esprits forts of Paris. She might have been as gay in public, as dismal in private, and as wretched in her end, as any of the most distinguished among them for their wit and their woe. But God had destined her for other scenes and services — scenes from which greatness turns away appalled, and services which all the cohorts of infidel wit are unable to perform. She was to be prepared by poverty, bereavement, and grief, to pity and to succor the poor, the bereaved, and the grieving. The sorrows of widowhood were to teach her the heart of the widow — her babes, deprived of their father, to open the springs of her compassion to the fatherless and orphan — and the consolations of God, her refuge and strength, her very present help in trouble, to make her a daughter of consolation to them who were walking in the valley of the shadow of death.

"To train her betimes for the future dispensations of his providence, the Lord touched the heart of this chosen vessel in her early youth. The spirit of prayer sanctified her infant lips, and taught her, as far back as her memory could go, to pour out her heart before God. She had not reached her eleventh year when she selected a bush in the retirement of the field, and there devoted herself to her God by faith in the Redeemer. The incidents of her education, thoughtless companions, the love of dress, and the dancing-school, as she has herself recorded, chilled for a while the warmth of her piety, and robbed her bosom of its peace. But her gracious Lord revisited

her with his mercy, and bound her to himself in an everlasting covenant, which she sealed at his own table about the seventeenth year of her age.

"Having married, a few years after, Dr. John Graham, surgeon to the 60th British regiment, she accompanied him first to Montreal, and shortly after to Fort Niagara. Here, during four years of temporal prosperity, she had no opportunity, even for once, of entering the habitation of God's house, or hearing the sound of his gospel. Secluded from the waters of the sanctuary and all the public means of growth in grace, her religion began to languish and its leaf to droop. But the root was perennial — it was of the seed of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. The Sabbath was still to her the sign of his covenant. On that day of rest, with her Bible in her hand, she used to wander through the woods, renew her self-dedication, and pour out her prayer for the salvation of her husband and her children. He who 'dwelleth not in temples made with hands,' heard her cry from the wilds of Niagara, and strengthened her with strength in her soul.

"By one of those vicissitudes which checker military life, the regiment was ordered to the island of Antigua in the West Indies. Here she met with that exquisite enjoyment to which she had been long a stranger — the communion of kindred spirits in the love of Christ: and soon did she need all the soothing and support which it is fitted to administer; for in a very short time the husband of her youth, the object of her most devoted affection, her sole earthly stay, was taken from her by death. The stroke was, indeed, mitigated by the sweet assurance that he slept

in Jesus. But a heart like hers, convulsed by a review of the past and anticipation of the future, would have burst with agony, had she not known how to pour its sorrows into the bosom of her heavenly Father. Trials which beat sense and reason to the ground, raise up the faith of the Christian, and draw her closer to her God. O, how divine to have him as the rock of our rest when every earthly reliance is a broken reed.

"Bowing to his mysterious dispensation, and committing herself to his protection as the Father of the fatherless and the Husband of the widow, she returns with her charge to her native land, to contract alliance with penury, and to live by faith for her daily bread. That same grace under whose teaching she knew how to abound, taught her also how to suffer need. With a dignity which belongs only to them who have treasure in heaven, she descended to her humble cot, employment, and fare. But her humility, according to the Scripture, was the forerunner of her advancement. The light of her virtues shone brightest in her obscurity, and pointed her way to the confidential trust of forming the minds and manners of young females of different ranks in the metropolis of Scotland. Here, respected by the great and beloved by the good; in sacred intimacy with 'devout and honorable women,' and the friendship of men who were in truth servants of the most high God, she continued in the successful discharge of her duties till Providence conducted her to our shores.

"She long had a predilection for America, as a land in which, according to her favorite opinion, the church of Christ is signally to flourish. Here she

wished to end her days and leave her children. And we shall remember with gratitude, that in granting her wish, God cast her lot with ourselves. Twenty-five years ago she opened in this city a school for the education of young ladies, the benefits of which have been strongly felt, and will be long felt hereafter, in different and distant parts of our country. Evidently devoted to the welfare of her pupils — attentive to their peculiarities of character — happy in discovering the best avenue of approach to their minds — possessing in a high degree the talent of simplifying her instruction and varying its form, she succeeded in that most difficult part of a teacher's work, the inducing youth to take an interest in their own improvement, and to educate themselves by exerting their own faculties.

"In governing her little empire, she acted upon those principles which are the basis of all good government, on every scale and under every modification — to be reasonable, to be firm, and to be uniform. Her authority was both tempered and strengthened by condescension. It commanded respect while it conciliated affection. Her word was law, but it was the law of kindness. It spoke to the conscience, but it spoke to the heart; and obedience bowed with the knee of love. She did not, however, imagine her work to be perfected in fitting her élèves for duties and elegance of life. Never did she forget their immortal nature. Utterly devoid of sectarian narrowness, she labored to infuse into their minds those vital principles of evangelical piety which form the common distinction of the disciples of Christ, the peculiar glory of the female name, and the surest

pledge of domestic bliss. Her voice, her example, her prayers concurred in recommending that pure and undefiled religion without which no human being shall see the Lord. Shall we wonder that her scholars should be tenderly attached to such a preceptress; that they should leave her with their tears and their blessing; that they should carry an indelible remembrance of her into the bosom of their families; that the reverence of pupils should ripen with their years into the affection of friends; and that there should be among them, at this day, many a wife who is a crown to her husband, and many a mother who is a blessing to her children, and who owes, in a great degree, the felicity of her character to the impressions, the principles, and the habits which she received while under the maternal tuition of Mrs. GRAHAM?

"Admonished at length by the infirmities of age, and importuned by her friends, this venerable matron retired to private life. But it was impossible for her to be idle. Her leisure only gave a new direction to her activity. With no less alacrity than she had displayed in the education of youth, did she now embark in the relief of misery. Her benevolence was unbounded, but it was discreet. There are charities which increase the wretchedness they are designed to diminish; which, from some fatal defect in their application, bribe to iniquity while they are relieving want, and make food and raiment and clothing to warm into life the most poisonous seeds of vice. But the charities of our departed friend were of another order. They selected the fittest objects — the widow, the fatherless, the orphan, the untaught child, and the ignorant adult. They combined intellectual and

moral benefit with the communication of physical comfort.

"In her house originated the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children. Large, indeed, is this branch of the family of affliction, and largely did it share in her sympathy and succor. When at the head of this noble association, she made it her business to see with her own eyes the objects of their care; and to give, by her personal presence and efforts, the strongest impulse to their humane system. From morning till night has she gone from abode to abode of these destitute, who are too commonly unpitied by the great, despised by the proud, and forgotten by the gay. She has gone to sit beside them on their humble seat, hearing their simple and sorrowful story, sharing their homely meal — ascertaining the condition of their children — stirring them up to diligence, to economy, to neatness, to order — putting them into the way of obtaining suitable employment for themselves and suitable places for their children — distributing among them the word of God, and tracts calculated to familiarize its first principles to their understanding — cherishing them in sickness, admonishing them in health — instructing, reproving, exhorting, consoling — sanctifying the whole with fervent prayer. Many a sobbing heart and streaming eye is this evening embalming her memory in the house of the widow.

"Little if any less is the debt due to her from that invaluable charity, the Orphan Asylum. It speaks its own praise, and that praise is hers. Scores of orphans redeemed from filth, from ignorance, from wretchedness, from crime — clothed, fed, instructed — trained

in cleanliness to habits of industry — early imbued with the knowledge and fear of God — gradually preparing for respectability, usefulness, and happiness, is a spectacle for angels. Their infantine gayety, their healthful sport, their cherub faces, mark the contrast between their present and former condition; and recall very tenderly the scenes in which they used to cluster round their patron-mother, hang on her gracious words, and receive her benediction.

"Brethren, I am not dealing in romance, but in sober fact. The night would be too short for a full enumeration of her worthy deeds. Suffice it to say that they ended but with her life. The Sabbath previous to her last sickness occupied her with a recent institution — a Sunday-school for ignorant adults; and the evening preceding the touch of death, found her at the side of a faithful domestic, administering consolation to his wounded spirit.

"Such active benevolence could hardly be detected in company with a niggardly temper. Wishes which cost nothing; pity which expires on the lips; be ye warmed and be ye clothed, from a cold heart and an unyielding gripe, never imprinted their disgraceful brand upon Isabella Graham. What she urged upon others she exemplified in herself. She kept a purse for God. Here, in obedience to his command, she deposited the first-fruits of all her increase; and they were sacred to his service, as in his providence he should call for them. No shuffling pretences, no pitiful evasions, when a fair demand was made upon the hallowed store; and no frigid affectation in determining the quality of the demand. A sense of

duty was the prompter, candor the interpreter, and good sense the judge. Her disbursements were proportioned to the value of the object, and were ready at a moment's warning, to the very last farthing.* How pungent a reproof to those ladies of opulence and fashion who sacrifice so largely to their dissipation or their vanity, that they have nothing left for mouths without food, and limbs without raiment! How far does it throw back into the shade those men of prosperous enterprise and gilded state who, in the hope of some additional lucre, have thousands and ten thousands at their beck; but who, when asked for decent contributions to what they themselves acknowledge to be all-important, turn away with this hollow excuse, 'I cannot afford it.' Above all, how should her example redden the faces of many who profess to belong to Christ; to have received gratuitously from him what he procured for them at the expense of his own blood, 'an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away;' and yet, in the midst of abundance which he has lavished upon them, when the question is about relieving his suffering members, or promoting the glory of his kingdom, are sour, reluctant, mean. Are these the Christians? Can it be that they have committed their bodies, their souls, their eternal hope, to a Saviour whose thousand promises on this very point of honoring him with their substance, have less influence upon their hearts and their hands than the word of any honest man? Remember the deceased, and hang your heads — remember

her, and tremble; remember her, and bring forth fruits meet for repentance.

*The author knew her, when in moderate circumstances, to give, unsolicited, fifty pounds at once out of that sacred purse to a single most worthy purpose.

"In that charity, also, which far surpasses mere almsgiving, however liberal, the charity of the gospel, our friend was conspicuous. The love of God shed abroad in her own heart by the Holy Ghost, drew forth her love to his people wherever she found them. Assuredly she had in herself this witness of her having 'passed from death unto life,' that she loved the brethren. The epistle, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart; yet read and known of all men: that is, the Christian temper manifested by a Christian conversation, was to her the best letter of recommendation. Unwavering in her own faith as to the peculiar doctrines of the gospel, she could nevertheless extend love without dissimulation, and the very bowels of Christian fellowship, to others who, whatever might be their mistakes, their infirmities, or their differences in smaller matters, agreed in the great Christian essential of acceptance in the Beloved. Deeply did she deplore the conceit, the bigotry, and the bitterness of sect. O that her spirit were more prevalent in the churches; that we could labor to abase our crown of pride; to offer up with one consent upon the altar of evangelical charity, those petty jealousies, animosities, and strifes which are our common reproach; and walk together as children of the same Father, brethren of the same Redeemer, and heirs of the same salvation.

"To these admirable traits of character were added great tenderness of conscience and a spirit of prayer. Her religion, not contented to justify her before men,

habitually aimed at pleasing God, who looketh upon the heart. It was not enough for her to persuade herself that a thing might be right. Before venturing upon it, she studied to reduce the question of right to a clear certainty. How cautious and scrupulous and jealous of herself she was in this matter, they best can tell who saw her in the shade of retirement as well as in the sunshine of public observation. Perhaps it is not going too far to say, that her least guarded moments would, in others, have been marked for circumspection. At the same time her vigilance had nothing austere, gloomy, constrained, or censorious — nothing to repress the cheerfulness of social intercourse, or to excite in others, even the thoughtless, a dread of merciless criticism after they should retire. It was sanctified nature moving gracefully in its own element. And with respect to the character and feelings of her neighbors, she was too full of Christian kindness not to keep her tongue from evil and her lips from speaking guile.

"These virtues and graces were maintained and invigorated by her habit of prayer. With the 'new and living way into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,' she was intimately familiar. Thither the Spirit of grace and supplication daily conducted her; there taught her to pray, and in praying to believe, and in believing to have 'fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.' She knew her God as the God that heareth prayer; and could attest that 'blessed is she that believeth, for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.'

"Under such influence her course could not but be

correct, and her steps well ordered. The 'secret of the Lord is with them that fear him; and he will show them his covenant, he will guide them in judgment.' Thus he did with his handmaid whom he hath called home. Wherever she was, and in whatever circumstances, she remembered the guide of her youth, who, according to His promise, never left her, nor forsook her; but continued His gracious presence with her when she was old and gray-headed.

"You may perhaps imagine, that with such direction and support it was impossible she should see trouble. Nay, but waters of a full cup were wrung out to her. She often ate the bread of sorrow steeped in wormwood and gall. Her heavenly Father showed her great and sore adversities; that he might try her as silver is tried, and bring her forth from the furnace purified seven times. It was during these refining processes that she found the worth of being a Christian. Though her way was planted with thorns and watered with her tears, yet the candle of the Lord shone upon her head; and from step to step she had reason to cry, Hitherto hath Jehovah helped.

"In a word, like Enoch, she walked with God; like Abraham, she staggered not at his promise through unbelief; like Jacob, she wrestled with the angel and prevailed; like Moses, endured as seeing Him who is invisible; like Paul, finished her course with joy. Blessed were the eyes of the preacher, for they saw the victory of her faith; and his ears, for they heard her song of salvation. 'You can say with the apostle, I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him?' 'O yes, but I cannot say the

other, I have fought a good fight; I must say, I have fought a poor fight, I have run a poor race; but Christ fought for me. Christ ran with me, and through Christ I hope to win,' 'But you have no fear, no doubts, about your going to be with Christ?' 'O no, not a doubt; I am as sure of that as if I were already in my Saviour's arms.' It was her final conversation with children of the dust. The next day, when her flesh and her heart had so far failed that she was incapable of uttering a sentence, she still proved her God to be the strength of her heart, and knew him to be her portion for ever. I said to her, 'It is peace,' She opened her eyes, smiled, closed them again, bowed her dying head, and breathed out, 'Peace,' It was her last word on this side heaven. The attending spirits caught it from her lips, and brought to her the next day permission to sleep in Jesus.

"From this review allow me to urge the value of private exertions in promoting general good.

"In pursuing his gratifications, man is apt to look upon himself as a being of great importance; in fulfilling his duties, to account himself as nothing. Both are extravagances which it will be his wisdom and happiness to correct. He is neither supreme in worth nor useless in action. Let him not say, 'I am but one; my voice will be drowned in the universal din; my weight is lighter than a feather in the public scale. It is better for me to mind my own affairs, and leave these higher attempts to more competent hands.' This is the language, not of reason and modesty, but of sloth, of selfishness, and of pride. The amount of it is, 'I cannot do every thing, therefore I will do nothing,' But you can do much. Act well your part

according to your faculties, your station, and your means. The result will be honorable to yourself, delightful to your friends, and beneficial to the world. I advise not to gigantic aims, to enormous enterprise. The world has seen but one Newton, and one Howard. Nothing is required of you but to make the most of the opportunities within your reach.

"Recall the example of Mrs. Graham. Here was a woman, a widow, a stranger in a strange land, without fortune, with no friends but such as her letters of introduction and her worth should acquire, and with a family of daughters dependent upon her for their subsistence. Surely if any one has a clear title of immunity from the obligation to carry her cares beyond the domestic circle, it is this widow, it is this stranger. Yet within a few years this stranger, this widow, with no means but her excellent sense, her benevolent heart, and her persevering will to do good, awakens the charities of a populous city, and gives to them an impulse, a direction, and an efficacy unknown before.

"What might not be done by men — by men of talent, of standing, of wealth, of leisure? How speedily, under their well-directed beneficence, might a whole country change its physical, intellectual, and moral aspect; and assume, comparatively speaking, the face of another Eden, a second garden of God. Why then do they not diffuse thus extensively the seeds of knowledge, of virtue, and of bliss? I ask not for their pretences; they are as old as the lust of lucre, and are refuted by the example which we have been contemplating: I ask for the true reason, for the inspiring principle of their conduct. It is this — let them look to it when God shall call them to account

for the abuse of their time, their talents, their station, their 'unrighteous mammon' — it is this: they believe not 'the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.' They labor under no want but one, they want the heart. The bountiful God add this to the other gifts which he has bestowed upon them. I turn to the other sex.

"That venerable mother in Israel who has exchanged the service of God on earth for his service in heaven, has left a legacy to her sisters: she has left the example of her faith and patience; she has left her prayers; she has left the monument of her Christian deeds; and by these she being dead, yet speaketh. Matrons, has she left her mantle also? Are there none among you to hear her voice from the tomb, Go and do thou likewise? None whom affluence permits, endowments qualify, and piety prompts, to aim at her distinction by treading in her steps? Maidens, are there none among you who would wish to array yourselves hereafter in the honors of this virtuous woman? Your hearts have dismissed their wonted warmth and generosity, if they do not throb as the revered vision rises before you. Then prepare yourselves now, by seeking and serving the God of her youth. You cannot be too early adorned with the robes of righteousness and the garments of salvation in which she was wedded, in her morning of life, to Jesus the King of glory. That same grace which threw its radiance around her, shall make you also to shine in the beauty of holiness; and the fragrance of those virtues which it shall create, develope, and ennoble, will be 'as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed.'

"Yea, let me press upon all the transcendent

excellence of Christian character, and the victorious power of Christian hope. The former bears the image of God; the latter is as imperishable as his throne. We fasten our eyes with more real respect and more heart-felt approbation upon the moral majesty displayed in walking as Christ also walked, than upon all the pomps of the monarch or decorations of the military hero. More touching to the sense and more grateful to high heaven is the soft melancholy with which we look after our departed friend, and the tear which embalms her memory, than the thundering plaudits which rend the air with the name of a conqueror. She has obtained a triumph over that foe who shall break the arm of valor, and strike off the crown of kings. 'The fashion of this world passeth away.' Old Time approaches towards his last hour. The proudest memorials of human grandeur shall be food for the conflagration to be kindled when 'the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire. Then shall he be glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that believe.'

"There are those perhaps, in the present assembly, who repute godliness fanaticism, and the sobriety of Christian peace the gloom of a joyless spirit; but who cannot forbear sighing out, with the prophet of mammon, 'Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.' If they proceed no further, their wish will not be granted. None shall die the death of the righteous, unless by a rare dispensation of mercy, who do not live his life. They only are fit to be with God who love God and keep his commandments. In that day of transport and of terror which we shall all witness, how many of the thoughtless

fair who now 'sport themselves with their own deceivings,' would give all the treasures of the east and thrones of the west to sit with Isabella Graham on the right hand of Jesus Christ. If ye be wise betimes, ye may. Now is the accepted time; to-day is the day of salvation. The gospel of the Son of God offers you at this very moment, the forgiveness of your sins, and an inheritance among them that are sanctified. The blessing comes to you as a free gift: accept it, and live; accept it, and be safe; accept it, and put away the shudderings of guilt and the fear of death. Then shall you too, like our friend, go in due season to be with Christ. Your happy spirit shall rejoin hers in the mansions of the saved. God shall bring you in soul and body with her when he makes up his jewels. Then shall he gather his elect from the four winds of heaven, shall perfect that which concerneth them, and make them fully and for ever blessed. Be our place among them in that day.'

EXTRACT FROM MRS. GRAHAM'S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT.

"My children and my grandchildren I leave to my covenant God — the God who hath fed me all my life with the bread that perisheth, and the bread that never perisheth; who has been a Father to my fatherless children, and a Husband to their widowed mother thus far. And now, receiving my Redeemer's testimony, John 3:33, I set to my seal that God is true; and believing the record in John's epistle, that God hath given to me eternal life, and this life is in his Son, who, through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot unto God, and being consecrated a

priest for ever, hath with his own blood, entered into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for me. I also believe that he will perfect what concerns me, support and carry me safely through death, and present me to his Father, complete in his own righteousness, without spot or wrinkle. Into the hands of this redeeming God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I commit my redeemed spirit."

Mrs. Graham's epitaph on a tablet in the Pearl-street church, is associated with that of her son-in-law Mr. Bethune, to whom before his connection with the family she was a spiritual mother; who prepared her memoir, wrote and printed tracts for her widows, imported Bibles for her to distribute, replenished her charity purse when exhausted; with whom she took sweet counsel and walked to the house of God in company; and for whom she was pleased to leave the written and honorable testimony: "He stands in my mind, in temper, conduct, and conversation, the nearest to the gospel standard of any man or woman I ever knew as intimately. Devoted to his God, to his church, to his family, to all to whom he may have opportunity of doing good, duty is his governing principle; cast upon his care, under God he nourishes me with kindness," etc. They have entered into rest. One sepulchre contains their sleeping dust, and one monument bears the following tribute to their memory:

Sacred to the Memory
OF
DIVIE BETHUNE,
MERCHANT OF THIS CITY,
WHO DIED SEPTEMBER 18, 1824, AGED 53 YEARS;
AND OF
ISABELLA GRAHAM,
HIS MOTHER-IN-LAW,
WHO DIED JULY 27, 1814, AGED 72 YEARS.
THEY WERE BOTH NATIVES OF SCOTLAND.
THIS MONUMENT
IS REARED BY HIS BEREAVED WIDOW AND HER ORPHAN DAUGHTER,
AS A TESTIMONIAL OF TWO SERVANTS OF JESUS CHRIST:
THE ONE A RULING ELDER IN HIS CHURCH, THE OTHER A MOTHER IN ISRAEL;
WHO, LIKE ENOCH, WALKED WITH GOD,
LIKE ABRAHAM, OBTAINED THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF FAITH,
AND, LIKE PAUL, FINISHED THEIR COURSE WITH JOY.
THEY WERE LOVELY AND PLEASANT IN THEIR LIVES,
AND THEY REST HERE TOGETHER IN THEIR GRAVES.

"THE BLESSING OF HIM THAT WAS READY TO PERISH CAME UPON THEM; AND THEY CAUSED THE WIDOW'S HEART TO SING FOR JOY." JOB 29:13.
"OH HOW GREAT IS THY GOODNESS, WHICH THOU HAST LAID UP FOR THEM THAT FEAR THEE; WHICH THOU HAST WROUGHT FOR THEM THAT TRUST IN THEE BEFORE THE SONS OF MEN!" PSA. 31:19.

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