Page:Hannah More (1887 Charlotte Mary Yonge British).djvu/197

Rh, "I learn gography, and the harts and senses."

Children of this stamp were frequently brought to Mrs. More to be examined and receive a small reward. One, after repeating a little poem very nicely, when asked, "Who was Abraham?" after some consideration, said, "I think he was an Exeter man."

Meantime, she tells Sir William Pepys, "There is hardly a city in America in which I have not a correspondent, on matters concerning religion, morals, and literature." With a bequest from one of the Canons of Lincoln she redeemed two little slaves in the Burman Empire, and she had the pleasure of hearing that, with the proceeds of a sale of an engraving of her abode, her American friends had founded a mission school for girls in Ceylon, and named it Barley Wood.

Her last book, the Spirit of Prayer, was published in 1824, her eightieth year. It led to the last correspondence with her much-valued friend, Sir William Pepys, who died in the course of the next summer of 1825. Other great friends, Bishops Van Mildert and Fisher and Lady Cremorne, were also taken in a few months time, and none were more sincerely mourned than good Mr. Jones, of Shipham, the first of the clergy who had worked heartily with her. In sixty-one years, during which he had been in Holy Orders, he had only on four Sundays failed to officiate.

All the time, whenever she was well enough, she