"Leaving the contemplation of feverish excitement, fantastic and complicated subtleties, angry zeal, and dissocial passions, I turn to the records of memory, where are graven for ever the lineaments of one who was indeed a disciple of Christ, and whose character seemed the earthly reflection of his. Wherever there was existence her benevolence flowed forth, never enfeebled by the distance of its object, yet flushing the least of daily pleasures with its warmth. Her views rose to the most comprehensive moral grandeur, while her calm, uncompromising energy against sin, was combined with an ever-flowing sympathy for weakness and woe. She spent her life in one continued system of active beneficence, in which her business, her projects, her pleasures, were but so many varied forms of serving her fellow-creatures. Never for a moment did a reflection for herself cross the current of her purposes for them. Her whole heart so went with their distresses and their joys, that she scarcely seemed to have an interest apart from theirs. The simplicity of her character was peculiarly striking, in the unhesitating readiness with which she received—I might even say, with which she grasped at—the correction of her errors, and listened to the suggestions of other persons. One undivided desire possessed her mind—it was not to seem right, but to do right.
"What heightened the resemblance between her and the model she followed, was, that her counsels came not from a bosom that had never been shaken with the passions she admonished, or the sorrows she endeavoured to soothe. Her character was one of deep sensibility and passions strong even to violence; but they were controlled and directed by such vivid faith as has never been surpassed. Her long life had tried her with almost every pang that attends the attachment of such beings to the mortal and the suffering, the erring and perverse; and when those sorrows came, that reached her heart through its deepest and most sacred affections, the passion burst forth, that showed what the energy of that principle must have been, that could have brought such a mind to a tenor of habitual calmness and serenity. When every element of anguish had been mingled together in one dreadful cup, and reason for a week or two was tottering in its seat, she was seen to resume the struggle against the passions that for a moment had conquered. The bonds that attached her to life were indeed broken for ever, but she recovered her heart-felt submission to God, and she learned by degrees again to be happy in the happiness she gave.
"It was this depth and strength of feeling that gave her a power over others, seldom surpassed, I believe, by any other mortal. In her the erring and the wretched found a sure refuge from themselves. The weakness that shrunk from the censure or the scorn of others, could be poured out to her as to one whose mission upon earth was to pity and to heal; for she knew the whole range of human infirmity, and that the wisest have the roots of those frailties that conquer the weak. But in restoring the fallen to their connexion with the honoured, she never held out a hope that they might parley with their temptations, or lower their standard of virtue: a confession to her cut off all self-delusion as to culpable conduct or passions. While she inspired the most uncompromising condemnation of the thing that was wrong, she never advised what was too hard for the "bruised reed;" she chose not the moment of excitement to rebuke the misguidings of passion, nor of weakness to point out the rigour of duty. But strength came in her presence: she seemed to bring with her irresistible evidence that any thing could be done which she said ought to be done. The truths of religion, stripped of fantastic disguises, appeared at her call with a living reality, and for a time, at least, the troubles of life sank down to their just level. When our sorrows are too big for our own bosoms, if others receive then with stoicism, it repels all desire to seek relief at their hands; but the calmness with which she attended to the effusions and perturbations of grief, seemed the earnest of safety from one who had passed through the storm. The deep and tender expression of her noble countenance suggested that feeling with which a superior being might be supposed to look down from heaven on the anguish of those who are still in the toils, but know not the reward that awaits them.
"Every thing petty seemed to drop off from her mind, but she imbibed the spirit of essentials so perfectly, she followed it throughout with such singleness of heart, that its influence affected her minutest actions, not by an effort of studied attention, but with the steadiness of a natural law. Nature and revelation she regarded as the two parts of one great connected system; she always contemplated the one with reference to the other; her views were therefore all practical and free from confusion, and nothing that promoted the welfare of this world could cease to be a part of her duty to God. It was her maxim that the motive dignified the action, however trivial in itself; and all the actions of her life were ennobled by the motive of obedience to an all-powerful Being, because he is the pure essence of wisdom and goodness. In the virtue of those who had not the consoling belief of the Christian, she still saw the handwriting of God, that cannot be effaced from a generous mind; and she used to dwell with delight on the idea that the good man, from whose eyes the light of faith was withheld in this life, would arise with rapture in the next, to the knowledge that a happiness was in store for him which he had not dared to believe.
"It was not the extent of her intellectual endowments that made her the object of veneration to all who knew her; it was her extraordinary moral energy. The clear and vigorous view she took of every subject arose chiefly from her habit of looking directly for its bearing on virtue or happiness; she saw the essential at a glance, or could not be diverted from the truth by a passion or a prejudice. Hence, also, her lofty undeviating justice; her regard to the rights of others was so scrupulous, that every one within reach of her influence reposed on her decisions with unhesitating trust; nor would the certainty that the interests of those she loved best were involved, have cast a shadow of doubt over her stainless impartiality.
"She could be deceived, for she was too simple and lofty always
to conceive the objects of base minds:—
"'And oft, though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps
At wisdom's gate, and to simplicity
Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill,
Where no ill seems.'
Paradise Lost.
"Nevertheless, she generally read the characters of artifice and insincerity with intuitive quickness, though it was often believed she was duped by those whom she saw through completely. Of this she was aware, but she was so exempt from all desire to prove her sagacity, that she never cared to correct the misconception; and she held that it was neither useful nor quite justifiable to expose all the pretences we may discover, till it became necessary to set the unwary on their guard.
"She never renounced the innocent pleasures or pursuits of life, nor the proprieties of a distinguished station, though she partook so little of its luxuries, that she could pass from the splendour of her own establishment to one the most confined, apparently without sensibility to the change. Wherever she moved, she inspired joy and cheerfulness; yet she was by no means unreserved, except to those she tenderly loved, and it was surprising how any manner so gentle, could at the same time oppose a barrier so impassable to the advances of the unworthy. She enjoyed the beauty of nature with passion. Her mind, at an advanced age, had all the elasticity and animation of the prime of life, and she could be led to forget half the night in the excitement of conversation. Happy were the hours spent with her in the discussion of every subject that could call forth her opinions, and her wide knowledge of the eventful times in which she had lived!—hours that exalted the feelings, informed the understandings, and animated the playfulness of younger minds, who found that forty years of difference between their age and hers, took nothing from their sympathies, but added a new and rare delight to their intercourse.
"But she is gone! To those who knew her, her counsels are silent and her place void; but there remains the distinct consciousness, that to them had been given a living evidence of the true Christian spirit, for if hers were not true, than many errors be more excellent than truth! Far distant, and with unequal steps, they endeavour to follow her course and perhaps the distaste with which they turn from the defective and ill-proportioned models that are forced on their admiration, is scarcely consistent with the charity she always taught."