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A Place In Thy Memory

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

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Page 6:

43  

"A heart that can feel and a hand that can act."

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He left, saying, "In the morning I will either come or send my son with a carriage to take you to the depot." My ministering angel, this time, was Thurlow Weed, of Albany; and, may the Lord add to the length of his days many happy years, and the joys of each succeeding be multiplied by the joys of the last!

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In the forenoon, my seat in the car was shared by an aged sire, who beguiled the hours with pleasing incidents. In the afternoon, a Scotchman, from the banks of the Clyde, entertained me with descriptions of the Highlands. Eloquent lips are a good substitute for eyes. He was present when Leopold, in sable robes for his Charlotte, was ambassador for George the Fourth to Edinburgh. With the fleetness of fancy, I became not only a looker on, but an actor in all that brilliant scene. The splendid streets, and edifices, the dazzling crowd, the royal equipage, the high-headed and high-souled officers, the elegantly set tables and brilliant guests, he described as if with them but yesterday. Whoever he was, his happiness was greatest when contributing most to the happiness of others. It would have done your heart good to hear him repeat snatches from Burns, in the full spirit of the great Poet; who was, he said, one of Nature's own nobility. *****

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At Pittsford, resting by the way with friends of lighter days, a note from Mrs. H., of Rochester, welcomed me for a time to her home, where we read, ride, walk, and talk the days away. Lizzy and Mary, too, with gentle hands, come often to lead me by pleasant ways; now where the Genesee leaps thundering from the rocks, and now where it winds noiseless to the sleeping lake, always mentioning in words like pictures, every tree, shrub and flower. They tell me when we are at the corner of a new building, walking to the other gives its length, and knowing the number of stories, imagination readily makes the view her own; thus I keep in mind the many changes of our growing city. If Oswald's Corinne was more eloquent she was not more kind, nor her love more true. My poor eyes cannot see them, but I know looks of love are on their faces, such as pitying angels wear. Gratitude is the most heavenly inhabitant of the human breast, and though shut out from its beauties, it is still a blessing to exist in so good a world.

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When the Autumn winds begin to moan among the trees, the members of the New-York Institution for the Blind will meet again at their happy home, where may the angels bring you often. Oh! you never seemed so near, so dear, as now. Accept my heart's love, sealed with a friendship's kiss. As Burns says, -- "A heart-warm, fond good-by."

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N. B. A lady never writes a letter without a postscript. I forgot to tell you that my journey home cost me nothing. Captains, railroad conductors and all, instead of presenting their bills, inquired how they could best serve me, where I would stop, &c. Ought not even the blind to be joyous and happy in a land so kind, so free, as ours? *****

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Our nature is threefold, or in other words, we seem to be made up of three distinct beings, or sets of energies; mental, moral, and physical; and it is the strange mingling and commingling of these, and their effects and influences upon each other, that produce what is called character. When God made man, he did not intend his strongest powers should rule, but the best; but contrary to his wish, in most persons, the seat of government is planted in the mind instead of the heart; and reason is allowed to sway her glittering sceptre over those inhabitants of the soul, love, charity, gratitude, faith, and hope, which were intended to be free, or governed only by heaven's golden rules. Byron was an example in whose character it was difficult to say whether the mental or physical powers had the sway; and so of Pope, and the selfish Walpole. Who, in reading the beautiful songs of Montgomery and Kirke White, does not feel that they came from a source entirely different? Indeed, in the one case we seem communing with spirits, whose very breath was warm with love from heaven; and in the other, with beings whose thoughts were inspired only in the gloom of night, and the sullenness of despair. Now education and manner of living have much to do with this. If books are placed before us which only encourage the ambition, and adorn and dignify the mind, and our food be such as stimulates and cultivates the less ennobling passions, though apparently simple in themselves, they are, nevertheless, in their effects lasting as eternity. A child, who before his morning meal has learned to whisper the name of Jesus in thankfulness and prayer, and at night holds his little heart up to God for blessings, when he grows to be a man will hardly go astray, or allow the impulses of his nature to be governed by a thing so cold and calculating as human reason; far otherwise; you will find him inquiring of God, and his own conscience, the way of duty, and you will see him always forgetting himself and trying to make others happy. These thoughts are not too sober even for a school-girl; you are now building a character for yourself, of which the lessons and exercises of each day form a part. No after time can efface the consequences of one act, or the influence of one word, either upon ourselves or those around us. To get your lessons perfectly and recite them, is not all you have to do. A boarding-school is a little community by itself, in which each room answers to a dwelling, whose inhabitants we may call our neighbors; and here we have a field, into which we may bring into exercise all our capacities, both mental and moral. Here we may plant the germs of philanthropy and religious zeal, here we may learn to dry away the tear of sorrow, and smooth the pillow of the sick, and pity those who suffer. That beautiful command, that the strong should bear the infirmities of the weak, seems written almost expressly for the members of a school, for we cannot all gather knowledge with the same facility. A lesson that is sport for one, is a hard task for another. My dear, we have guardian angels who every day bear reports to heaven of our doings here, and when the books are opened we must answer for the record they have kept. From this hour, then, seek to know and do the will of your Heavenly Father. First see that your thoughts are clothed with the precepts of his word, and, while you journey upward in life's mountain path, set on either side with briers and thorns, though your pilgrim feet may be often torn by flinty rocks you need not fear; for our Saviour has, said, "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world."

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