MRS. H. M. STEVENS.
Another veteran teacher of the A. M. A. has been called home to her rest. On the morning of May 7, at her home in St. Albans, Vt., Mrs. H. M. Stevens, known to A. M. A. workers as Miss E. M. Barnes, of Bakersfield, Vt., fell asleep after a severe and painful sickness of several mouths.
Miss Barnes entered the service of the Association in 1865 and left it in 1882, to minister to her devoted friend and fellow laborer, Miss Sarah A. G. Stevens, in her last sickness. When released from this service of love her own health prevented her return to the Southern work. Her first year was spent at Arlington, Va. She spent six years in the Lewis High School, Macon, Ga., four years in the Le Moyne Institute, Memphis, Tenn., and her last six in Fisk University—seventeen years of devoted, earnest and fruitful labor in behalf of the colored youth in the South.
Since leaving the South her life has been a pleasant and useful one as Mrs. Stevens, the wife of a devoted husband and an earnest and zealous Christian woman in the city and the church where her lot was cast. The testimony to her nobility and earnestness of character was manifested in signal ways by the church and people during her sickness, and she has evidently left behind a precious memory of her short life in St. Albans. I have before me a letter written to a teacher in Fisk University less than three weeks before her death, and it will interest her friends to learn how the years of her life which she spent in the work of giving help to the struggling colored youth of the South looked to her as she lay upon her dying bed in her pleasant home surrounded by the friends that loved her so well.
She wrote: "I thank the Lord for the years He gave me in that Southern land. Those seventeen years were the hardest, happiest and most satisfying of my life. I have ever thanked God for giving me a place among that noble band of workers. I have arranged to establish a permanent scholarship at Fisk, so that my influence will still live there after I am gone. I loved the work there more than any other I have ever done. In all my weakness I am resting in the Everlasting Arms, and find there strength sufficient to support, trusting entirely to the blood that cleanseth from all sin and saves unto the uttermost."
The news of Mrs. Stevens' death was telegraphed to Fisk University, and on the Sunday night following, an impressive memorial service was held in the chapel of Livingstone Hall. The story of her life and labors, as told by those who knew her well, produced a deep impression upon the students, and will bear in their lives fruit in greater consecration and the spirit of self-sacrifice. The testimony borne by several of the young men who were about to graduate, and one who had already graduated, to the influence exerted on their lives and character by Mrs. Stevens was the highest tribute that could have been paid to the gentleness, nobility and spirituality of her character. To her counsel, encouragement and sympathy they felt they were indebted for their best inspiration. Her influence lives in the world, and will continue to increase through the lives and labors of others whom she led to the feet of their Lord, and to consecration to the uplifting of their race. May the spirit of Mrs. Stevens continue to be the spirit of those who represent the A. M. A. in its work for the uplifting of a depressed but struggling race!
E. M. Cravath.