It is twenty-four years — and how brief the span of them seems 

 in retrospect — since Mrs. Brainerd came to us, essentially a stranger, 

 to assume the duties of a peculiarly difficult position. How well 

 those duties have been performed; with what ever-increasing strength 

 and skill she has borne the burdens of manifold responsibility; how 

 surely and steadily she has grown into the affection of this community, 

 the group that is gathered here to-day is itself a sufficient witness. 



I count myself favored that from the first it was my privilege 

 to enjoy her friendship, and to mark, as so many of you have marked, 

 the beautiful unfolding of her life. For I know of no greater pleas- 

 ure than to see a ripening nature grow mellow with the years ; to watch 

 the experience of a friend — the experience that is arduous even more 

 than that which is gladsome — transmuting itself into power, and that 

 transmutation we have seen in the life of Mrs. Brainerd. I shall 

 think of her oftenest as I knew her in the home, where for me and 

 for so many there have ever been, through all the years, a gracious 

 welcome and an unstinted giving of her best. 



And now when she was nearing the maturity of her powers ; when 

 the need in the home seemed greatest of her counsel and her care ; when 

 she filled a larger and larger place in the lessening circle of the old- 

 time friends, all that she was has become a memory. It seems an 

 incalculable loss. One wishes that it were in his power to express 

 to those to whom she has been dearest how tenderly we hold them in 



our thought. But sorrow is inarticulate, and perhaps it is better so; 

 they know, without the telling, how heart-felt is our sympathy, how 

 deep and true our love. 



Nor is it at all a joyless hour, for memories are a potent thing, 

 and the memory of the just is blessed. May the blessed memory that 

 is theirs be strength and solace in the days that lie before, leading 

 them ever, with gentle compulsion, to loftier levels of living; into the 

 ampler ether, the diviner air, of the large places of the spirit. And 

 so she will be with them still, in somewhat of the old-time gracious- 

 ness, for "to live in hearts we leave behind is not to die". 



"I heard a voice from heaven saying, Blessed are the dead which 

 die in the Lord from henceforth: yea, saith the Spirit, that they may 

 rest from their labors; and their works do follow them." 



