Few persons, whose names are connected with the history of modern missions, have displayed a more devoted, self-sacrificing spirit, or greater moral courage, than Miss Sophronia Farrington. Prior to the autumn of 1834, of six missionaries who had entered the field in Africa under the patronage of American Methodists, three[64] were in their graves, and two[65] had returned to the United States for health. Miss Farrington stood alone, and the question arose, what she should do. The officers of the Missionary Society were willing she should return home, and her friends were urging it upon her. With her co-laborers all dead or fled, she seemed herself to be left to the alternative either to flee or fall. Should she choose the former course, the mission would be wholly, and, for ought she knew, for ever, abandoned. What then should she do? Like a hero, to use her own words, she had "offered her soul upon the altar of her God, for the salvation of that long benighted continent," and with courage that shames the facer of the cannon's mouth, she resolved to remain and toil alone, beside the graves of her fallen companions till more help should come or the Divine Husbandman close the labors of the lone vine-dresser. More help arrived in a few months, and, according to the annual report of 1836, the mission, of whose history she formed at one time the connecting link, "continued to loom up in bright perspective, and promise a rich reward for all the labors and sufferings of the faithful missionaries." [64] Rev. M. B. Cox and Rev. O. S. Wright and wife. [65] Rev. Mr. Spaulding and lady. THE DAUGHTER OF AARON BURR. 'Tis thine on every heart to 'grave thy praise, A monument which Worth alone can raise. BROOME. Theodosia, the only daughter of Aaron Burr, was a woman of superior mental accomplishments, and very strong affections. She was married to Joseph Alston, Esq., afterwards Governor of South Carolina, in 1801. She was then in her eighteenth year. That she was an excellent wife may be gathered, not merely from the story of her life, but from the testimony of her husband. Writing to her father in 1813--soon after her death--he says, "The man who has been deemed worthy of the heart of Theodosia Burr, and has felt what it was to be blest with such a woman's, will never forget his elevation."[66] [66] Memoirs of Aaron Burr, by Matthew L. Davis, vol. 2, p. 432.