"There shall I wear a starry crown,
And triumph in almighty grace;
While all the armies of the skies
Join in my glorious Leader's praise."
This strain fell on the waking ears of ladies in the house adjacent to the tomb, and they inquired, "What sweet music is that? Who is serenading at this hour?" Little did they know the spirit-promptings of that song.
Soon after this, Mary went to visit some friends in Hampton. As she entered the yard, and approached the house, she sang another expressive hymn of Watts:—
"Firm as the earth thy gospel stands,
My Lord, my Hope, my Trust;
If I am found in Jesus' hands,
My soul can ne'er be lost.
"His honor is engaged to save
The meanest of his sheep;
All whom his heavenly Father gave
His hands securely keep.
"Nor death nor hell shall e'er remove
His favorites from his breast;
Safe on the bosom of his love
Shall they for ever rest."
Her friends opened the door at the sound of the tender music, and as they looked on her face, and listened to her song, they were overcome, and could not restrain their emotions.
Soon afterward, she united with the First Baptist Church in Norfolk, on Bute Street. The pastor was Rev. James A. Mitchell, who served the church from the time of Nat Turner's insurrection till his death, about 1852. He was emphatically a good man, and a father to the colored people—a very Barnabas, "son of consolation" indeed. A considerable portion of his church were colored people, and he would visit them at their houses, take meals with them, and enter into their affairs, temporal and spiritual, with a true and zealous heart. He never loved slavery; his private opinion was against it, but he was obliged to be cautious in the expression of his sentiments. He endured great trials for this proscribed class, and was almost a martyr in their behalf, his pastorate having begun just after Nat Turner's insurrection, which caused great persecution and restriction of privileges. But the Lord was with him, and made him to triumph.
Mary's mother says that she delighted to visit the poor in Norfolk, and especially the aged. A very old man, in the suburbs, often came to her door, and never went empty away; and frequently at evening she would go and carry him warm tea, and in the winter she brought him wood in small armfuls. When he died, he said he wanted Mary to have all that belonged to him. Though he was scarcely worth three cents, it was a rich heart gift.
Her Christian course was marked with usefulness. Self-denying devotion to the glory of God and the good of others characterized her earlier, as her later career. A deacon of the church on whom the writer called when recently in Norfolk, says she had a strong desire for the conversion of souls, and was often found exhorting them to repentance. Other members of the church bore the highest testimony to her uniform Christian deportment.