Mary S. Peake: The Colored Teacher at Fortress MonroeLockwood, Lewis C. (Lewis Conger)
Religion
Mary S. Peake: The Colored Teacher at Fortress Monroe
Lockwood, Lewis C. (Lewis Conger)
African American women teachers -- Biography; Peake, Mary S., 1823-1862
"_Little children_ will be there,
Who have sought the Lord by prayer,
From every Sabbath school.
Oh, that will be joyful, &c.
"_Teachers_, too, shall meet above,
And our _pastors_, whom we love,
Shall meet to part no more.
Oh, that will be joyful," &c.
The coffin was then opened, and we took the last, lingering look at a
face whose heavenly lineaments I can never forget.
In long procession, in which her recent charge bore a prominent part,
we accompanied her to her resting place. The place of her sepulture is
about a hundred yards north of the seminary, on the bank of the inlet.
A live-oak tree stands at her head, projecting its emblematic
evergreen foliage over the sod-roofed tenement.
The departed selected, as a remembrance of her immortality, the 17th
verse of the 118th Psalm, "I shall not die, but live." The thirty-nine
years of her earthly existence were but the prelude to a life beyond
the sky; and while her spirit survives the ravages of death, her name
shall live in memory.
* * * * *
In this unpretending memoir may its subject live again, and not in
vain. May teachers gather from her example fresh inspiration, and the
benevolent Christian fresh impulses in doing good. May they who enjoy
advantages superior to those of her proscribed race, take heed lest
the latter, by the better improvement of the little light enjoyed,
rise up in the judgment and condemn them.
Let Sabbath scholars, and children of pious parentage and Christian
education, who from earliest years have not only been taught to lisp
the Saviour's name, but to read it, pity the slave child, shut out
from such advantages, and give heed to instruction, lest, having more
given and unimproved, they be beaten with many stripes. Let all who
have an interest at the throne of grace remember little Daisy, and
pray that she may walk in her mother's footsteps, as far as she
followed Christ, only following more closely, attaining still greater
excellence, achieving still greater usefulness, and winning a still
brighter crown of glory.
As the enlarging harvest field whitens into ripeness, may the Lord of
the harvest send forth an increasing number of laborers. Oh, who will
give ear to the echoing cry, "Come over and help us"? Come to the
harvest work, and you too, with arms full of golden sheaves, shall
shout the harvest home. Who will pay the hire of the laborers? Who
will lend to the Lord the capital needful to secure the harvest in
season and well? For such there shall be untold riches laid up in
heaven. And who will sustain those who bear the burden and heat of the
day, by the buoyancy of prayer? This is a work thrice blessed to all
concerned.
APPENDIX.
MISSION TO THE FREEDMEN.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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