She lifted up the music book, and sang the most melancholy piece of music to which I ever listened, ending with the very solemn chord:— “As on some lone_ly_ building’s top The sparrow makes her moan, Far from the tents of joy and hope I sit and grieve alone.” Hannah then made a prayer in glowing Hebrew figures, a kind of rhapsody of Hebrew poetry. She sang another hymn tune of Maxim’s, then laid down her books and stood up. “My child,” she said, “this is my text; it was written for you thousands of years ago,—‘And Reuben returned unto the pit; and behold Joseph was not in the pit.’” Her thought was that a lost opportunity for doing good, of being loving, kind, and merciful, could seldom be recalled. Her words were homely and quaint, but her figures and ideas were poetic. She preached charity to all men. I recall only one whole sentence. It was: “Never lose an opportunity of doing good; if you do, it will injure _you_. We are all passin’ away; he that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” When she had finished her discourse, she said, “Now, I am goin’ to prophesy.” She stood in silence at first, looking up to the sky; then lifting her hand, she repeated the first six verses of the Fifty-first chapter of the poetry of Isaiah, in a tone quite unlike her usual voice. “It will come,” she said,—“that Great Thanksgiving will come in these towns that were founded by the old prophets. You will be there; that is revealed to me. I shall be there. But how? That is not clear. When I try to see myself there, there comes a cloud; the vision shuts down. Men have shut the doors of the old church, but the doors of the heavens are not closed. The Great Thanksgiving that I see will come, if I only prove faithful. It will come! It will come! The people will gather, as in days of old. There will be preachin’ in the old pulpit, and singing though I may not be here to sing _countre_. I can see the people comin’ through the graveyard, under the trees, but I am not there. Oh, where am I? Where am I? I don’t see myself anywhere; yet the Voice tells me I shall be there.” She sank down, a shadow on her serene face. She arose again, and sang a strange hymn. Each stanza ended with the words: “With glory in our souls.” It was a long hymn, with a plaintive air. “Come, child,” said she, when the song ended, “meetin’ is over now. Let us go.” She led me to the red cottage among the lilac-trees. How clean and neat it was! Then, in her kindly way, she brought me cake and milk, and drove out of the house a solitary fly, an early intruder. “You live alone?” I said. “Oh, no, no, child; _they_ all live with me; they come to visit me. The Lord lives with me, when I don’t murmur nor complain, and He never turns against me.