O, the magnetizing power of love! beginning first with the love of Christ, and then reaching out toward all our fellow-creatures! How wide spreading, how far-reaching in its influences! Home missions, foreign missions, small charities or large ones, incidental acts of kindness, thoughtful consideration for the welfare of others, all that a self-sacrificing spirit can do is done cheerfully and without hope of reward. A saintly young woman whose earthly pilgrimage ended at thirty-four, is thus eulogized by the pastor of the church for which she labored lovingly and assiduously: “She gave out so much to others that she has left herself broken in fragments here and there, and you and I hold this or that fragment so really that we are only hardly persuaded to acknowledge that there is an end of her earthly life for a time. How simply, purely and patiently that life was lived, you know.… Many and many a time have I pointed to that life as an example of what people might do and might be, if they would do as she did—be content ‘to live faithfully a hidden life,’” Her mother says: “Her unselfish work and devotion were marvelous. It is often said of her that she crowded more into her short life than is done or experienced in the longest. She shone the brightest in her daily life at home, always serving some one, forgetful of self. Her pure spirit grew so fast that the frail body could not retain it; yet she faded so slowly, so cheerfully and hopefully, that we hardly believed she could not rally until the day before she left us. Our sunshine is gone, but the radiance is still left in the memory of her sweet life.” Blessed memory! In this bright way she speaks of herself when laid aside from her sphere of usefulness, and obliged to some extent to discontinue the literary work which had proved so acceptable to the public and already given her considerable fame as an author: “I’ve been occupied with turning a corner, round which the landscape is different, and getting used to the change. I suppose it has been coming on for a good while; at all events, after some ten years of ruddy health and active exercise, I am not to sweep any more for a while, not to walk, not to sing, read aloud, talk much, not to hurry, not to get tired at anything.… Of course it is a little queer and painful sometimes, because, particularly, my father is always an invalid, and increasingly so. One dreads to be another anxiety. But I have no real reason to fret. Something good will come of it, I will expect. I am so thankful that I need not give up writing that I will not mind the rest of my denials;” and then when her own health was declining, and the sunset hour of her life was nearer than she thought, she closes her letter with “Good night, dear. Health and God’s blessing!” and it was a final “good night,” for word soon came of her entering into communion with the saints above.