Library Collections: Document: Full Text


A Place In Thy Memory

Creator: S.H. DeKroyft (author)
Date: 1854
Publisher: John F. Trow, New York
Source: Available at selected libraries

Previous Page   Next Page   All Pages 


Page 7:

50  

Rochester, Lizzy's Home.

51  

THE friendship of the good is a refuge that fails not, a treasure that angels prize, and in their diadems it is set round with virtue, love, and truth.

52  

My dear Augusta, as the flowers at eve incline their heads to departing sunbeams, so my spirit is drawn towards you, wander where I will. The love that does not end in this life, often ends with it; but the chain which binds our hearts has no broken links, and while life lasts, and beyond the sky, it will draw us together still. Loved one, where are you? Oh speak, I long to hear your words; they were music that fell on my ears and sank down into my heart, filling it with joys too much like heaven to fade or pass away. It is a long time since I have felt your friendly arms around my neck, and your kisses on my lips, and I often wonder if time and distance have not altogether estranged me from your thoughts. I know your other self, and those little ones who clamber by your side have right to the highest seat in your affections; and your heart's temple, lighted by a mother's smile, should be to them earth's fairest home; and there, dearest, I would have them ever stay and worship undisturbed at love's holiest altar, only let me share largely in your general love, and I shall be therewith content. But think of me sometimes, oftenest when you bow your heart at mercy's throne;

53  

Ask for me heaven's blessings there,
In the ardent hope of faith in prayer.

54  

I am passing the winter far away by the Genesee, where with the wild flowers my infancy grew; to-day the liquid thunders of its falls mingle with the winds; and storms are gathering as on the day when you came first with books and papers to read to me in the New-York Institution for the Blind. No time or place is so dear to memory as where the sorrowed heart has been blest, and its burdens a while borne by another; where the bereaved feelings have been coaxed to leave their sadness, and their tears dried by the hand of sympathy and love. A stranger in New-York, shut up in that school for the afflicted, how found I such a lodgment in your sympathies; and what spirit moved you to come so often to beguile my lonely hours; to take me to your pleasant home; to church, and every where I wished to go? If one good act pleases God more than another, it must be such forgetfulness of self, such desire to make others happy.

55  

Last week Mr. and Mrs. H--- left Rochester for Boston. The day previous to their departure, the Sewing Society of their church met at the house of my venerable friend Dr. Brown. The weight of years is on him now, and his looks are changed to the gray filaments of wisdom; but his heart is young, and his mind is active as ever: and with the sweet consciousness of a life well spent, he waits only for his Master to call him home, Towards evening all the ladies were assembling in the Doctor's room, when Mrs. H---, ignorant of the cause, said to him. "Doctor, you seem to be the greatest attraction of the day;" whereupon an elderly lady entered, and approached Mrs. H---, bearing in her hand a silver waiter, and some napkin rings for her children. This needed no explanation; their choked feelings refused words; the light of the past was on them, and with these beautiful expressions of gratitude and love between them, they and all present wept over remembered kindnesses, and ties soon to be severed for ever. I said in my heart, behold how these sisters love one another, and no wonder; their joint labors have clothed the destitute, fed the hungry, blessed the sick, and relieved suffering of every order. In a word, they have long "shared each other's gladness, and wept each other's tears." In the evening Dr. Brown presented his son for baptism, a lad of some nine or ten years -- the child of his old age. Several other parents did the same, and thus closed the labors of Mr. H. in Rochester. But the good that men do lives after them. Like bread upon the waters, if not realized now it will be gathered hereafter. When Mr. H. came to Rochester, his people were few in number, now they are a nourishing society; they have a beautiful church, an organ, and the largest parish library in the city. -- But this is little, compared with the hundreds his indefatigable labors have saved from vice, and the many who by his precept and example have learned the luxury of doing good. I am passing a few days with my friend Lizzy at her new home.

56  

My poor eyes did not see her exchange her hand for another's, but I heard her breathe her heart away in words low and truthful as angel vows. Her empire now is the domestic circle; her might is gentleness, and by it she winneth sway over all hearts that come within her borders. Lizzy is reading me Goldsmith, and as we turn his pages our gatherings are "gold all the way." It is safe reading authors one may love as well as their writings. Byron kindled his imagination by the dark and turbid waters of Acheron. Goldsmith wandered by the river of life, where from the fountain of his own feelings, and the society of the good, he gathered his pure thoughts, and his chaste and beautiful play of ideality, which instruct and enrapture the reader. Poor Goldsmith, poverty and want ever hung heavy at his heart; and his haunts still echo with his groans. But he went up the great highway to distinction, and wreathed upon his brow crowns woven of immortal laurels. Poverty is truly the cradle of genius; man obtains no excellence without labor. The master-spirits of all ages, who have dazzled the world with their brilliant achievements, had barriers to surmount, difficulties to remove, and only as they regulated their exertions by mental firmness did they become learned, great, or good. An ancient poet had for his motto, "The daring fortune favors." An American divine says, "In great and good pursuits, it is honorable, it is right, to use that kind of omnipotence which says I will, and the work is done."

Previous Page   Next Page

Pages:  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20  21  22  23  24  25  26  27  28  29  30  31  32  33  34  35    All Pages