The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-03-19
IN MEMORIAM.
Caroline shipman Edwards.

We read in the ninth chapter of the
 Book of Acts of a certain woman
 named Dorcas who was full of good works and alrnsdeeds which she did. :" The same words might well be used 1 With singular appropriateness as the
 brief biography of Miss Caroline Ship man Edwards, who has lately passed
 from our midst She was the last of 8
 remarkable group of four sisters,
 whose lives were spent in the fruitful
 work of doing good to others, and do-
 ing it with the single motive of giving
 thereby glory to God. Long retirement from the world, and now that the last I of these sisters is gone, it is well to re- call for the benefit of younger genera tionS, who knew her not at all, what she was and what she did. We knew her only in the evening of her long life, when she was already overtaken by the inf1rmities of age, and so only of her last years we shall speak. The first thing that impressed us in her charac- ter was the remarkable combination Of plain, practical, business common sense which we ordinarily associate only with those who live for this world, with that faith and hope and love which comes from, and so belongs lo
 the other. The practical directness of
 her speech, her cool, clear judgment and
 discrimination with regard to people
 and things around her, might, for the
 time, hide from the stranger the real
 saintliness of her life and the depth
 and fervor of her religious convictions.
 But one could not see her often without
 finding that the one thing which stood
 forth most conspicuously in her life
 was the recognition of the responsipil-
 ity of her stewardship and the joy of
 exercising and fulfilling it. The main-
 spring of her Happiness lay in being faithful to her trust Her talents of time and mind and opportunity and
 money she laid freely, and without stint at her Masters feet. There was no withholding of anything. Lord
 what wilt Thou have me to do? was always her foremost, eager, anxious question. And when the answer to
 tllat question came, as she read it
 through the Lords guidance, it met with prompt and glad performance at her hands What she could do for God through noble ministries to men was always in her thoughts. The word plot
 has come, in these days, to have an ominous and sinister sound, but her life reclaimed and ennobled its mean ing, for she was evermore plotting to do
 good, plotting to extend Gods kingdom in the mission field, plotting to strength en it at home. Christ church stands as a monument to her memory and that of her sisters, for their gifts made it's beginning possible fifty years ago She
 was ever ingeniously eontriving how sgle might give more to God and do more for mankind, and this always without a thought of self, or a looking to the recompense of the reward. And this ruling passion became strong in death, and more marked than ever in the lucid intervals of her last illness of three months. The habit of plotting and planning to do fgood, and the re- membrance of all the good works she had been interested in and loved to help in the days of her health and strength. were continued by the tired. brain, even when all the bodily powers were reduced to the extremity of weak ness. This world cannot know all the multitude of good works and alms- deeds which this woman did during her long life of nearly ninety years, but the recording angel has written them in Gods book of remembrance against the last great day. Of her it may be truly said, as it rarely can in these days, that she was ia choice vessel of Gods grace and light of the world in her generation.