the aged one who, twenty years ago, we put away for the resurrection.
About eighty years ago, and just before their marriage day, my father
and mother stood up in the old meeting-house at Somerville, New
Jersey, and took upon them the vows of the Christian. Through a long
life of vicissitude she lived harmlessly and usefully, and came to her
end in peace. No child of want ever came to her door and was turned
empty away. No one in sorrow came to her but was comforted. No one
asked her the way to be saved but she pointed him to the cross. When
the angel of life came to a neighbor's dwelling she was there to
rejoice at the incarnation. When the angel of death came to a
neighbor's dwelling she was there to robe the departed for the burial.
We had often heard her, when leading family prayers in the absence of
my father, say, "O Lord, I ask not for my children wealth or honor,
but I do ask that they all may be the subjects of thy comforting
grace?" Her eleven children brought into the kingdom of God, she had
but one more wish, and that was that she might see her long-absent
missionary son; and when the ship from China anchored in New York
harbor, and the long-absent one passed over the threshold of his
paternal home, she said: "Now, Lord, lettest Thou thy servant depart
in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." The prayer was soon
answered.
It was an autumnal day very much like this when we gathered from afar
and found only the house from which the soul had fled forever. She
looked very natural, the hands very much as when they were employed in
kindness for her children. Whatever else we forget, we never forget
the look of mother's hands. As we stood there by the casket, we could
not help but say: "Don't she look beautiful?" It was a cloudless day
when, with heavy hearts, we carried her out to the last resting-place.
The withered leaves crumbled under hoof and wheel as we passed, and
the sun shone on the Raritan River until it looked like fire; but more
calm and beautiful and radiant was the setting sun of that aged
pilgrim's life. No more toil, no more tears, no more sickness, no more
death. Dear mother! Beautiful mother!
"Sweet is the slumber beneath the sod,
While the pure spirit rests with God."
I need not go back and show you Zenobia or Semiramis or Isabella as
wonders of womanly excellence or greatness, when I in this moment
point to your own picture gallery of memory, and show you the one face
that you remember so well, and arouse all your holy reminiscences, and
start you in new consecration to God by the pronunciation of that
tender, beautiful, glorious word, "Mother! mother!"