"From report of quarterly meeting committee I quote: 'We cannot close this report and do justice to appointment and the precious memory of Sybil Jones (since gone to the eternal rest) without referring to her attendance at the general meeting in company with her husband. It was a great blessing to us to be recipients of this closing labor of her peculiarly devoted life. Many can bear witness to the heavenly expression of her countenance, her calmness, earnestness, yet tenderness of spirit, and the unusual unction which attended her ministrations as she pleaded with and for the erring and labored to restore the waste places of our Zion."
[CHAPTER XVI.]
ALONE AT HOME.
"Nor blame I Death because he bare
The use of virtue out of earth:
I know translated human worth
Will bloom to profit otherwhere."—In Memoriam.
It need not be told, and it could not, how the loss of his wife affected Eli Jones, already venerable with age. Those only who have borne a like sorrow know the depth of the wound. The strength of his character and the weight of his love were never shown more fully than in the first years of his widowed life. War had taken his first-born, his sons were at their work in the world, his eldest daughter was married, and the youngest daughter alone was still with him. Though sixty-six years of age, he was yet strong, and knew that much more work was before him if his life should be spared. There was no time given him to rest. Not his to question the ways of Providence, but to work while the day lasted. He could turn his face to no field where he was not reminded of her who had diligently stood by his side, and his loneliness gave a new power to his words. As Tennyson of his departed friend, he could say: