be the true one, Margaret Ossoli was preeminently a Christian. If a
life of constant self-sacrifice,--if devotion to the welfare of
kindred and the race,--if conformity to what she believed God's law,
so that her life seemed ever the truest form of prayer, active
obedience to the Deity,--in fine, if carrying Christianity into all
the departments of action, so far as human infirmity allows,--if these
be the proofs of a Christian, then whoever has read her "Memoirs"
thoughtfully, and without sectarian prejudice or the use of sectarian
standards of judgment, must feel her to have been a Christian. But not
alone in outward life, in mind and heart, too, was she a Christian.
The being brought into frequent and intimate contact with religious
persons has been one of the chief privileges of my vocation, but never
yet have I met with any person whose reverence for holy things was
deeper than hers. Abhorring, as all honest minds must, every species
of cant, she respected true religious thought and feeling, by
whomsoever cherished. God seemed nearer to her than to any person I
have over known. In the influences of His Holy Spirit upon the heart
she fully believed, and in experience realized them. Jesus, the friend
of man, can never have been more truly loved and honored than she
loved and honored him. I am aware that this is strong language, but
strength of language cannot equal the strength of my conviction on a
point where I have had the best opportunities of judgment. Rich as is
the religion of Jesus in its list of holy confessors, yet it can spare
and would exclude none who in heart, mind and life, confessed and
reverenced him as did she. Among my earliest recollections, is her
devoting much time to a thorough examination of the evidences of
Christianity, and ultimately declaring that to her, better than all
arguments or usual processes of proof, was the soul's want of a divine
religion, and the voice within that soul which declared the teachings
of Christ to be true and from God; and one of my most cherished