the self-same spirit. And, let us mark, in seeking first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, the kingdom of wealth had also been added unto her. While as yet the "English craze” had not been dreamed of, this woman who united in herself every element of age and strong-mindedness and indifference to pleasures, which are currently supposed to make a woman unattractive, secured not only a loyal heart but a royal home-walked quietly in and took possession of a colonial mansion so spacious, so lordly in its appointments, that two English gentlemen, welcomed to its hospitalities, acknowledged publicly its colonial charm. "It is not like ours," says their published "Narrative," "it is quite English, but English in the olden style the forms, carvings, cornices and patterns such as I have seen a hundred times, and the beautiful limes in the forecourt were literally brought from England.' She would hardly have found more fitting garniture, nor would she have worn her honors more gracefully, even if she had shaped the efforts of her life to the acquisition of the one and to preparation for the other.

In this beautiful and happy home she presided for twelve years with unfailing generosity, courtesy, grace, and peace. The same integrity and intelligence which had made the little brown cot of her birth a palace, made palatial the ample home of her marriage. Her thrift and her hospitality were unwearying. Her hospitality was not for show, but for service. Her thrift was not for hoarding, but for using. She not only entertained the learned and distinguished, whose presence brought her intellectual revenue, but the unlearned, and even the disagreeable, whose ministrations could be but the most indirect service to herself. To the lively niece, remonstrating against "taking that disagreeable man," her only reply was "have you been so long time with us my child, and do not yet know that the reason we 'take folks,' is not because they are agreeable?" Her guests were not simply for an hour or a dinner, but for days, weeks, months, years, according to their need. Now it was a widowed missionary tarrying with her children for the winter, then the son of missionaries Mr. Banister would receive and educate.

Indeed, they were seldom without some such beneficiary, of whom the one exaction made was that he should give to Mrs. Banister an account of every dollar received. This she considered a part of their

training, and if they could not be brought into it, she thought them hardly worth training! An invalid minister with his wife as nurse would be bidden to stay for months. A poor woman would be brought from her two small rooms to spend the winter in sunshine, free from all care. A poor girl would be given a home while she was going to school. But the hostess saved her nutshells because they would feed a fire, and she saved her crumbs because they would feed a bird. And when the poor folks who had never learned to save came to her door to beg, she tried to help them by work and wages rather than by alms.

If they went away muttering she helped them just the same, quietly remarking, "We can hardly expect such poor creatures to be reasonable." The General Charitable Society of Newburyport was formed in her house, and has resulted in the almost complete suppression of street beggary.

In all these matters, as in all matters, the heart of her husband safely trusted in her. His purse was open to all her draughts, his sympathy to her plans, his hospitality to her friends. Twelve years ⚫ of married life, as full as her earlier years had been of happiness, of dignity, of work for the world, of thoughtfulness for others—perhaps it may almost be said as full of solicitude for the education of the young and care in its accomplishment—were closed by the death of her husband. Under this shock she wavered just a little. For days her imagination and her sympathy overbore the loss, and she seemed to enter heaven with him and share the new joys breaking upon his newborn soul. Then coming back to earth, the loneliness and desolation appalled and nearly overwhelmed her. But she rallied herself with resolute will. The strong habit of her life, the strong conviction of duty to serve the world while she lived in it, held her steady above the storm, and gave her still one and twenty years—a man's majority -of busy, varied, not untroubled but tranquil and beneficent work. To the clergy and the churches, to the girls' schools springing up through the country, often from the seeds she had sown; to every form of mental and moral growth, of helpfulness and philanthropy, whether of private, individual or of public organization; she was a missionary-at-large, a female apostle, sympathizing, advising, consoling. She traveled through her own country and in Europe, and in

both continents was ministered to by those whose youth she had helped and blessed. It was war-time, and on both continents she kept the flag of her country flying. The life was new to her, and she gave all possible strength to sight-seeing; but nature was strong within her, and the old fires never ceased to burn. Tuscaloosa ne. groes, titled English ladies, polite and cultivated Frenchmen gathered to hear her Bible expositions as gladly as used the Derry girls of old time. With the contributions of modern science to faith, she made herself familiar, but was not troubled thereby. With all the movements of education she kept abreast, but never faltered in maintaining that character as well as intellect was the object of education.

In the seventy-fourth year of her age, a wicked man who, in the guise and disguise of a righteous man, was her business agent and held her property in trust, was discovered to have betrayed his trust, using her stocks without her knowledge to aid a member of his own family, who naturally became bankrupt. Her letter of inquiry to this wicked servant is most characteristic:

"Many thanks for your kind letter. May all your hopes for a favorable adjustment of your affairs be realized. I stand pledged to pay $300 a year for the education of each of three half-orphan greatgrand-children of my parents.

"I expected to withdraw this from my principal and thus diminish it. Do you see any way that this can be done? You will bear with me, dear sir, and allow me to inquire further against whom and with what securities do you hold the notes for $1,000 you transferred at my request to Mrs. P-, and the 1,000 so transferred to Mrs. F-? You have been patient, kind and faithful in advising me hitherto, but my own course is so interwoven with the bereaved, the desolate and the destitute, that I know not what to do without the light I seek from you. I want to know what is knowable about my funds. At what time or times were those funds loaned to-? When it has been reported to me that you were largely aiding business men in trouble by loaning funds for which you were trustee, I have thought, if it be so, I see not that I have aught to do about it. If I failed in doing all I ought, I hope I may see and repent of it. state to me the facts."'*

I believe you will

*"The Use of A Life," "Memorials of Mrs. Z. P. Grant Banister." By Miss L. .T Guilford, American Tract Society.

The facts were that every penny which had been left her by her husband was lost, and the unprofitable servant who had lost it had the assurance to congratulate her that she could bear her loss with resignation, having her treasure laid up in heaven. Left thus with only the small sum that had been saved from her own earnings, she made no complaint, craved no sympathy, bated no jot of active beneficence, never explained even when browbeaten for alms, but wrapped close her royal mantle of personal reserve, while opening heart and hand to the needs of all her world, till, sustained by the generous legacy of one step-daughter and tenderly cherished in the home of the other, she fell on sleep. Superbly faithful in the few things of earth, she must have been made ruler over many things, for such is the divine law of succession, and by this token she reigns a queen in heaven.

MA

CHAPTER XXVII.

SKETCH OF MARIA MITCHELL.

BY FRANCES FISHER WOOD. *

ARIA MITCHELL was born on ocean-girt Nantucket, that island of historic associations and uniquely primitive customs, which sends out to the world outside more reformers and celebrities than probably any other place of its size in all America.

Before fashion cast covetous eyes on its rugged beauty, one place at least could be found, which possessed neither extreme of social condition. For in old Nantucket there were no criminals nor paupers, nor any among its people who were rich. The one jail stood year after year unoccupied, its existence serving only as a reminder of the wickedness, which was to be found outside the island's circumference. The men of Puritan descent, alternated fishing and farming with literary work and scientific investigation. Among its simple, hardworking people, Maria Mitchell lived for over forty years. During that quiet time of homely work and lonely study was modelled her strong character with its principles, lofty as the heavens she studied. Here were formed her simple manners, with that unique combination of courtesy and bluntness; and here was established the sound health, which even to old age made the sturdy frame remarkable for its power of endurance. At Nantucket, Maria Mitchell made her first astronomical discoveries, and while still living on the lonely isolated island, she became one of the world's most famous

women.

Notwithstanding the manifest importance of the forty years in Nantucket, those who knew Maria Mitchell later, and who had any adequate conception of her great work at Vassar College, cannot but

*Educator, Lecturer, and Scientist.