That she must have had some literary faculty seems evident from the genuine pleasure she took in simple, quaint, sometimes even odd hymns of her own peculiar kind. But the very best of another sort she could not appreciate. For instance, the following, by John Mason, in my father's opinion one of the best hymn-writers, had no attraction for her:-- "Thou wast, O God, and thou was blest Before the world begun; Of thine eternity possest Before time's glass did run. Thou needest none thy praise to sing, As if thy joy could fade: Couldst thou have needed any thing, Thou couldst have nothing made. "Great and good God, it pleaseth thee Thy Godhead to declare; And what thy goodness did decree, Thy greatness did prepare: Thou spak'st, and heaven and earth appeared, And answered to thy call; As if their Maker's voice they Heard, Which is the creature's All. "Thou spak'st the word, most mighty Lord; Thy word went forth with speed: Thy will, O Lord, it was thy word; Thy word it was thy deed. Thou brought'st forth Adam from the ground, And Eve out of his side: Thy blessing made the earth abound With these two multiplied. "Those three great leaves, heaven, sea, and land, Thy name in figures show; Brutes feel the bounty of thy hand, But I my Maker know. Should not I here thy servant be, Whose creatures serve me here? My Lord, whom should I fear but thee, Who am thy creatures' fear? "To whom, Lord, should I sing but thee, The Maker of my tongue? Lo! other lords would seize on me, But I to thee belong. As waters haste unto their sea, And earth unto its earth, So let my soul return to thee, From whom it had its birth. "But, ah! I'm fallen in the night, And cannot come to thee: Yet speak the word, '_Let there be light_;' It shall enlighten me. And let thy word, most mighty Lord, Thy fallen creature raise: Oh! make me o'er again, and I Shall sing my Maker's praise." This and others, I say, she could not relish; but my endeavors were crowned with success in so far that she accepted better specimens of the sort she liked than any she had; and I think they must have had a good influence upon her. She seemed to have no fear of death, contemplating the change she believed at hand, not with equanimity merely, but with expectation. She even wrote hymns about it,--sweet, pretty, and weak, always with herself and the love of her Saviour for _her_, in the foreground. She had not learned that the love which lays hold of that which is human in the individual, that is, which is common to the whole race, must be an infinitely deeper, tenderer, and more precious thing to the individual than any affection manifesting itself in the preference of one over another.