The early educational advantages of Mrs. Steward were those afforded by the township school. Here she became a good English scholar, and supplemented the instruction, thus received, by extensive reading; so that she became proficient, both as a writer and a conversationalist. She was converted and joined the A. M. E. Church, at Gouldtown, in 1846. In 1869 commenced her physical suffering, which, at times was so acute, as to carry her to the very portal of the grave. What she said upon religious subjects was of the most earnest character. When her children were even very young, it was her usual custom to read to them from the Bible such portions as would impress upon their minds the divine lessons of this Holy Book; and instil into their plastic hearts, "line upon line, and precept upon precept;" and, after thus reading and explaining, she would kneel with them and plead with God to guide them by His heavenly Light! One evening, in the midst of these devout exercises, and while asking God for His guidance, her husband entered the room, and then and there, for the first time, bowed in prayer with his family. But a short time after this occurrence, her husband and Mr. Abel Lee, the father of President Lee, of Wilberforce University, were both converted and united with the Church. Lamartine relates in his opening chapter of his "Voyage to the Holy Land," that the desire, to make the journey, was awakened in his mind by his mother's Bible lessons. He stated that his reward for a good lesson, was to be permitted to see the pictures of an illustrated Bible, and hear from his good mother's lips the history and explanations of these pictures. Is it necessary to be said, that we can see the effect of Rebecca Steward's Bible lessons upon the minds of her children, in giving them an impulse to seek for things divine? From 1869 to 1872, two of her sons were in the South, one in Georgia and the other in Florida, viz.: William and Theophilus (Rev. T. G. Steward). They visited the paternal roof once a year. When their visit had terminated, and they were about to depart, she would bid them adieu with cheerful words, and an invocation to heaven to bless them; she would urge them back to their posts of duty, beseeching them to be pious men, and in all things labor for the honor and glory of God, and be not dismayed if a messenger should come to them, saying: "_Mother is done suffering_." She would say: "The Good Man" would keep her safely and take her home in His own good time.