_Assistant Editor "Unitarian," Chicago, Ill._
* * * * *
I had heard from time to time that she was feeble, but her fragile
frame held so strong a spirit, that I hoped she would triumph over
bodily weakness for many years to come. The world can ill spare
such as she. Each time I saw her I was impressed more and more with
the strength of her character and the clearness and directness of
her mind. Upon meeting a stranger of whom one has heard much there
is almost always a little period of bewilderment before the ideal
and real can be harmonized, even where there is not disappointment;
and at first I was at a loss how to reconcile the strong,
well-balanced mind, with its keen insight,--as revealed in her
letters,--with the delicate, dainty, sweet-looking little woman,
shut out from her kind to so great a degree by her affliction. Yet
when her tiny hand grasped mine so firmly at our first meeting,
there was that in the clasp that reconciled and united my ideal
with the actual; they were only two sides of the same nature. She
was so strong, too, in being so genuine and so full of faith. In
these halting, doubting times, a faith in the eternal verities so
strong and unwavering as hers is like a rock to many a tossed and
uncertain soul. Such people do not know their own power of helping.
I can never refrain from questioning _why_ those who are so needed
in the world must be taken, when the useless and worthless are
left, unless it is that they go that they may leave the _spirit_ of
their service to do a larger work as a heritage to all who will
accept it. Though dead, they speak with many tongues.