Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/119

106 is there of blessings from her* hand. She ha& helped lay a Messiah in many a poor man's crib.

Her hands are thin; her voice feeble; her back is bent; she walks with a staff—the best limb of the three. She wears a cap of antique pattern, yet of her own nice make. She has great round spectacles, and holds her book away off the other side of the candle when she reads. For more than sixty years she has been a special providence to the family. How she used to go forth—the very charity of God—to soothe, and heal, and bless ! How industrious are her hands! how thoughtful and witty that fertile mind! Her heart has gathered power to love in all the. eighty-six years of her toilsome life. When the birth-angel came to a related house, she was there to be the mother's mother; ay, mother also to the new-born baby's soul. And when the wings of death flapped in the street, and shook a neighbour's door, she smoothed down the pillow for the fainting head; she soothed and cheered the spirit of the waiting man, opening the curtains of heaven that he might look through and see the welcoming race of the dear Infinite Mother : nay, she put the wings her own strong, experienced piety under him, and sought to bear him up.

Now, these things are passed by. No, they are not passed by; they are recollected in the memory of the dear God, and every good deed she has done is treasured in her own heart. The bulb shuts up the summer in its breast which in winter will come out a fragrant hyacinth. Stratum after stratum, her good works are laid up, imperishable, in the geology of her character.

It is near noon now. She is alone. She has been thoughtful all day, talking inwardly to herself. The family notice it, and say nothing. In her chamber, from a private drawer, she takes a little casket; and from thence a book, gilt-edged and clasped; but the clasp is worn, the gilding is old, the binding faded by long use. Her hands tremble as she opens it. First she reads her own name, on the fly-leaf; only her Christian name, "Agnes," and the date. Sixty-eight years ago this day it was written there, in a clear, youthful, clerkly hand—with a little tremble in it, as if the heart beat over-quick. It is very well worn, the dear old Bible, It opens of its