Page:Letters of Life.djvu/249

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EDUCATIONAL REMEMBRANCES.
237

would have remained there twice as long, rather than not be in season for the reunion." Interesting epistles were read from absent ones, my early records of our school-life searched into, while this revivifying of scenes and events of other days made us all young again.

As twilight approached, two bright, efficient beings, insisted on relieving me from all superintendence of the tea-table, which they had all previously united in loading with luxuries. This blissful occasion was to me most sweet and salubrious. It brought new life into the lone heart. It restored those precious years when side by side we labored and aspired, viewing education as a mighty and solemn thing, which was to gird us for the battle of life, and the victory over death.

With my whole soul I bless God for those years of diligent effort. I thank Him that I was permitted to sustain such a relation to those pure-hearted and affectionate creatures. If I was made an instrument of any good to them, I received tenfold from them, and from the sweet toil of being their teacher. What can better close remembrances so dear, than the eloquent words of the great statesman of Massachusetts:

"If we work upon marble, it will perish. If we work upon brass, time will efface it. If we rear temples, they will crumble to dust. But, if we work