One evening, in the midst of these devout exercises, and while asking God for His guidance, her husband entered the room, and then and there, for the first time, bowed in prayer with his family.
But a short time after this occurrence, her husband and Mr. Abel Lee, the father of President Lee, of Wilberforce University, were both converted and united with the Church.
Lamartine relates in his opening chapter of his "Voyage to the Holy Land," that the desire, to make the journey, was awakened in his mind by his mother's Bible lessons. He stated that his reward for a good lesson, was to be permitted to see the pictures of an illustrated Bible, and hear from his good mother's lips the history and explanations of these pictures. Is it necessary to be said, that we can see the effect of Rebecca Steward's Bible lessons upon the minds of her children, in giving them an impulse to seek for things divine?
From 1869 to 1872, two of her sons were in the South, one in Georgia and the other in Florida, viz.: William and Theophilus (Rev. T. G. Steward). They visited the paternal roof once a year. When their visit had terminated, and they were about to depart, she would bid them adieu with cheerful words, and an invocation to heaven to bless them; she would urge them back to their posts of duty, beseeching them to be pious men, and in all things labor for the honor and glory of God, and be not dismayed if a messenger should come to them, saying: "Mother is done suffering." She would say: "The Good Man" would keep her safely and take her home in His own good time.
The premonition of a sudden death was constantly before her; but this was no evidence that it created fear; for she was on a Rock. A few evenings previous to her death, she said, with a tender smile: "Children, you will look for me in the morning, but mother will not be here." She was fully prepared to meet Death, but he came not then. A few days after this she was seized with such violent spasms as to destroy consciousness; but, when the spasms had passed, and her consciousness had returned, and observing that her husband and the children, who were at her bedside, were sore distressed, and that her husband had telegraphed to New York for Theophilus, and to Philadelphia for William, the latter a clerk in the A. M. E. Book Room, and the former had just closed his Pastorate of the Bridge St. A. M. E. Church, Brooklyn, N. Y., she chided her husband, by saying, that it was not worth while to worry and distress them. Then, after telling her husband to meet her in heaven, she expired in the arms of her oldest daughter.
Taine, whose illustrations of individual or natural characteristics have been unequalled, has said, with much force, that behind the fossil there was an animal, and that behind the old, faded manuscript there was a man; and we know the man and his peculiarities from the manuscript. For such axiomatic expressions as these, Taine has been applauded by the most learned of every land. Yet, to a Bible reader, axioms as forcible as Taine's, stand conspicuous throughout the sacred pages.
A man is known by his works. "Do we gather figs from thistles?" "Can an impure fountain send forth sweet water?" are Bible axioms.
We have been led to the above digression from the facts related to us; because, behind these facts, we shall show there existed no ordinary woman. Though descended from what might be claimed as the aristocracy of one of the original thirteen States, a State as proud of its ancestry as the most pretentious, she assumed no aristocratic prerogatives; but, among the humblest, still showed herself to be a Christian woman, in the full significance of these words; and, if she claimed homage, it was conceded to her spontaneously by the right of her mental adornments and the graces of an unsullied Christian life. Here mankind are beginning, though late, to concede all the distinctive traits of preeminence.
Rebecca Steward was a woman of extraordinary ability, and possessed some of the most excellent qualities of both heart and mind. Eulogy will not appear to be exaggeration, when pronounced in the presence of those who knew her; and they will unanimously declare, that she feared God and loved her race. None were her superiors, and few were her equals. She was not influenced by the arbitrary rules conceived in prejudice of caste or race; her sympathies were as wide as humanity, and as uncontaminated as a child's; her sympathies were guided by her judgements, and her judgements were made clear by the teachings of the hand of God, and not warped by the infections of exclusiveness. Gifted with a mind of ceaseless activity, comprehensive observation, and the most placid reflection, she yet possessed a head whose capacious breadth could feel the pulsations of an humble heart. In whatever class, or position, or society she was cast, she was equally at home; with the refined and intellectual, she ranked their peer; to the ignorant, poor, and lowly, she was a helping hand, and a guiding voice to a higher life. Her conversations were distinguished by freedom of language and the appropriate words in which she clothed her thoughts. She shunned the stilted words of the pedant as she conversed to communicate thoughts and principles. She did not read to treasure ideas and sentiments for her own selfish, personal or mental amusements, but she read and thought, that she might communicate to others that which she read; and thus, here and there, plant a seed, whose unending product could be estimated alone before the throne of God. She was generous with her thoughts as with her means; and they who needed either, received freely and liberally, as she herself had received most liberally from the bounteous Giver.
Charlotte Brunte is often cited as an example of how much can be accomplished by the mind, even when the body is afflicted.