In accordance with the usual custom--nothing could he omit that would do honor to her memory--the minister gave a slight biographical sketch of Benigna. He spoke of her childhood, and told the children that there was not one of them who had not been born in a happier home and to better fortunes than she. She had served music well because she loved it well, and they were all witnesses whether she had received any reward for faithfulness in that service. She had served her Master well because to her His service was the highest freedom, and she found in it the greatest joy. They had but to think upon, to look upon, her beautiful face if they would know whether she could have chosen another service in which she would have found such joy. Did she not appear to them--not because she had departed: would she not if she were still among them?--the most complete in excellences and virtues of any character they had known? Was she not farther on in the perfect life than any one of them? And how happy her life in Spenersberg had been! "Surely, surely," he concluded, "this heroic example of constancy to duty, of struggle against weakness, will not be lost on us! Never, on any battle-field of faith, fought a braver soldier. God has given her the victory. In a moment, at the close of a day of labor, in her school-room, right there in that blessed, that sacred place--just there where she would have chosen, with the kisses of her children on her face--just there she heard the summons. Can we doubt, O friends! that when our day of labor is ended we shall see Sister Benigna again? Not if we resolve that with God's help we will prove ourselves worthy of the high honor of being called her friends on earth." The silence which filled the house after the minister sat down was broken by the sounding of the trombones: then from beneath the trees Leonhard saw the beautiful procession again following the bier; and as he watched the flutter of garments between the dark-green cedar walls, it had been no difficult thing to see in that company not a company of mourners, but the ransomed sons and daughters of the New Jerusalem.