The Dying Year.
Incomprehensibility of God.
The Star of Bethlehem.
God Made Me Poor.
The Stranger Guest.
A Long. Delightful Walk (prose).
“The Servant is Not Above his Master.”
Elijah.
The Sacred Page.
Behold how He Loved Us.
Love Your Enemies.
The Orphan.
Sententious Paragraphs (prose).
“Ye Did It Not to Me.”
Hear and Help Me.
Farewell.
No Mother.
To a Mother on the Death of her Child.
In Goodness is True Greatness.
Similes (prose).
The Crucified of Galilee.
The Ascension.
The Hebrew’s Lament.
When Shall I Receive my Diploma? (prose).
Alone with Jesus.
The Lost Babe.
The Day of Wrath.
The Believer’s Safety (prose).
The hill country of Judea, which furnished a home
for the virgin mother of our Lord, is not the only
rural region from whence have come women endowed with
intelligence and integrity, philanthropy and religion,
who by pen and tongue have brightened and blest the
hearts and homes of thousands. Nurtured amidst
the wilds of nature, instead of the bustle and bewildering
attractions of city life, they have grown strong to
do battle for the right and to bear testimony to the
truth as it is in Jesus. Of this class is the
one whose life and labors we are now to consider.
Memphremagog is an enchanting lake, two-thirds of
which lie in the Eastern Townships of Canada, in the
Province of Quebec, and the upper third in Vermont.
Its extreme length from north to south is about thirty
miles, its breadth varying from one to three miles.
It is semi-circular in form and bestudded with islands;
while on its western shore rise mountains of no ordinary
attractions, among them Owl’s Head, which towers
about 2,500 feet above the surface of the lake, affording
from its summit a panoramic view of surpassing loveliness.
It was at “The Outlet” of this lake there
was born, Oct. 27, 1834, Helen Mar, the youngest daughter
of Abel B. and Polly Johnson; and there she spent—with
the exception of the time devoted to attending or
teaching school—almost her entire life.
Of cities she knew nothing by experience; but as her
reading was extensive she knew much of the world by
mental surveys. The book of Nature was her delight.
Its illustrations of stones and streams, lakes and
rivers, mountains and forests, birds and flowers,
were ever attractive to her. At an early age
she began to exhibit rare poetic talent. Of “a
number of short pieces, written between the ages of
twelve and fifteen years,” the following, entitled
“The Forest,” has been preserved.
It appeared in the Stanstead Journal—a
paper to which she afterwards frequently contributed.
It was probably the first article she ever had printed.
