She was ninety years of age--eighty years she had been an exile from the
land of her birth. She had forgotten the prayer her mother taught her,
and knew nothing of the worship of her father, when one morning she sent
a messenger to tell the missionaries she wished to see them. She had ever
before refused to listen to them if they came to her dwelling, but they
hastened to obey the summons, glad to feel that they should be welcomed,
though quite uncertain concerning the nature of the interview she
proposed. She was literally withered away, her face was scarcely larger
than an infant's and completely checkered with fine wrinkles, her teeth
were entirely gone and her mouth so sunken that her nose and chin almost
met, her hair not silvery, but snowy white, except a little lock by each
ear which still retained the sandy hue of childhood, her form which was
always slender, was bent, and her limbs could not longer support her. She
had revived the knowledge of her language since she had dwelled among the
white people but, "Oh," said she, as the ladies entered, "I have
forgotten how to pray; my mother taught me and told me never to forget
this, though I remembered nothing else," and then she exclaimed, "Oh,
God! have mercy upon me." This expression she had heard in her old age,
and now uttered it in the fullness of her heart. There had come a gleam
of light through all the darkness and superstitions of Paganism, and this
spark was kindled at the fireside of that little cottage home, and fell
upon her heart from a mother's lips, and now revived at the remembrance
of a mother's love and her dying blessing. It was eighty years since she
had seen that mother's face, as she breathed out her soul in anguish,
bending over her in the silent depths of the wilderness, eighty years
since she listened to "Our Father who art in Heaven," from Christian
lips, and now the still small voice which had so long been silent, spoke
aloud, and startled her as if an angel called. She tried to stifle it,
and for many days after it awoke in her bosom, she heeded it not, but it