OBITUARY.
Miss Sarah A. G. Stevens, for 14 years a teacher among the Freedmen under the commission of the A. M. A., the last three of which were spent in Fisk University, was called to her rest, from the home of her brother in her native place, St. Johnsbury, Vt., on April 5th. She entered the service of the Association in the fall of 1866, and retired at the close of the school-year in 1880, with health and strength so impaired that the rest and change of climate, which she subsequently sought, brought no real improvement. These years of faithful service had been cheerfully and enthusiastically given. The thought of them gave her great comfort and satisfaction during the months of weariness and suffering which preceded her death. Her recovery was hoped for by herself and friends up to the beginning of the new year. In January her physician sent word to Miss E. M. Barnes, a teacher in Fisk University, that there were developments of a fatal disease, and that death was but a question of a few weeks, possibly months.
Miss Barnes had been associated with Miss Stevens for ten years as a teacher in the South, and had been her most intimate friend and companion. She owed her life under God to the faithful nursing and care of Miss Stevens, when attacked by yellow fever during the prevalence of that scourge in the city of Memphis, Tenn., in the fall of 1873, at which time three teachers of the Mission Home lost their lives. Miss Barnes resigned her position and hastened to the bedside of her sick friend. The following extract from her letter, announcing the death of her friend, will best illustrate the peacefulness and beauty of the closing weeks of her life:
“The messenger came for her Wednesday morning, April 5th. Yesterday we laid her body away to its last rest. Rest—how much that means to her; it had been so long since she had known rest. She had failed very rapidly during the week, and yet death came suddenly in the end. Tuesday afternoon, after some hours of great pain and suffering, a change came, and, breathing peacefully as a child, she passed away with an upward look, as if the joys of Heaven were already bursting upon her sight. During the last days of her life she spoke confidently and calmly of her hopes of the future. Often, when suffering the most intensely, nothing would soothe and quiet her so quickly as reading from the Bible. I never remember a murmur against her suffering during all her illness. Allusion was made at her funeral, by her pastor, to her work in the South; that such an example of self-denial and devotion to the Master’s work among the lowly was a legacy to any community.”