"It is not my intention to relate the history of her life. That will be a proper task for biography. I design merely to state a few leading facts, and to sketch such outlines of character as may show to those who knew her not, what manner of person she was in all holy conversation and godliness. Those who knew her best require no such remembrancer, and will be able, from their own observation, to supply its defects.
"ISABELLA MARSHALL, known to us as Mrs. GRAHAM, received from nature qualities which, in circumstances favorable to their development, do not allow their possessor to pass through life unnoticed and inefficient.
"An intellect strong, prompt, and inquisitive--a temper open, generous, cheerful, ardent--a heart replete with tenderness, and alive to every social affection and every benevolent impulse--a spirit at once enterprising and persevering--the whole crowned with that rare and inestimable endowment, good sense--were materials which required only skilful management to fit her for adorning and dignifying any female station. With that sort of cultivation which the world most admires, and those opportunities which attend upon rank and fortune, she might have shone in the circles of the great without forfeiting the esteem of the good. Or had her lot fallen among the literary unbelievers of the continent, she might have figured in the sphere of the Voltaires, the Duffauds, and the other _esprits forts_ of Paris. She might have been as gay in public, as dismal in private, and as wretched in her end, as any of the most distinguished among them for their wit and their woe. But God had destined her for other scenes and services--scenes from which greatness turns away appalled, and services which all the cohorts of infidel wit are unable to perform. She was to be prepared by poverty, bereavement, and grief, to pity and to succor the poor, the bereaved, and the grieving. The sorrows of widowhood were to teach her the heart of the widow--her babes, deprived of their father, to open the springs of her compassion to the fatherless and orphan--and the consolations of God, her refuge and strength, her very present help in trouble, to make her a daughter of consolation to them who were walking in the valley of the shadow of death.