The Semi-weekly leader., 1907-03-27
II Memory Of Mrs. N. e. strickland.

- es@Ss.-~ed - 80 ess 69AtSstseAehtAe
Mary Eliza Bennett was born in
the year 1885, in Pickens county,
Alabama. Her childhood was
spent in the vicinity Of Liberty
Academy (Ala.) J, and Of Provi-
dence Baptist church, of which
she became a member at an early
age Here was laid the founda-
Ition Of a thorough education which
was completed at Judson Institute
sometime in the SOS, when she
took her diploma for graduation.
Because of some mistake her name
was marked deceased in the In
lstltute catalogue away back in the
260's, and it is not known that a
correction of this error was ever
made. In the early '60's she came
to Brookhaven and here married
james Strickland. She was the
mother of four children, a son dy-
ing in infancy. The three daugh-
ters are Mines. John M. Green,
Robert G. Rdos, and Marshall
Moreland, all of Texas, known in
timately by numbers of friends
here by the names their mother
gave them "SaIlie," Mary"
and Annie" Mrs. Strickland
died at the home of Mrs. Green at
Yoakum, Texas, Thursday, March
81, and was buried there the fol-
lowing day.
These are the salient points in
the life of Mrs. Strickland, writ
ten by the faithful hand of her be-
loved brother, DR.. James w. Ben
nett, of this city. The rest is
known to Brookhaven friends
among whom she lived until re-
cent years. Her life was an open
book known and read of all men.
Its pages bear record of the splen-
| did character; the broad, cultured
mind; the kind, generous heart;
! the ready, helpful hand; the de-
voted mother, sister. friend-the
beautiful Christian spirit that
crowned it ali and marked hers a
life eminently one of useful
ness. If it ever could be said, and
said sincerely, that the world is bet
ter for a life that is finished and
gone out on these darksome shores
| to shine refulgent beyond the
depths of death, it'may be said of
hers. Her busy hands, and they
we're always busy. reached out for
ever to help somebody; to do the
duty that lay next =
In her home, the very soul of
| Devotion brooded over "the chill
dren" and the loved ones there.
God never put into woman's heart
a purer, sweeter, truer Mother
love. 1t was like a sea flower
buffeted by the waves, moved by
the heaving sea, but never brok-
en-; = when the calm came it
bloomed anew in the beauty of its
strength and the aroma of its
heart of hearts. The tendrils Of
her love were so woven and inter
woven about the lives of her own,
that neither life nor death, nor
things present, nor things to come
can ever separate her and them.
Outside the portals of her home
she knew no caste nor creed. She
went out like the Son of Man
himself to do good. The lives, in
which she planted better hopes
and higher aspirations; lives,
shorn of human help, and heart
some sympathy, gladdened and
sheltered by her; lives, that re-
ceived the impress of her own
earnest, hopeful spirit; lives, that
learned from her own lips the
"oId, old ry"-young lives
now extending the influence of
the life she lived-must sweep on
in their might, wave on wave,
through Time and into Eternity
itself, to empty at last no other
where than in the beautiful River
that flows by the Throne of God. y
So exalted were her mind and
heart that she could stoop msgnif-
Gently in the power of her Love
for God and Man, to serve her
Lord and generation, where one
less grandly wrought would fear
to tread.
She was known in every move
ment that tended toward the bet
terment of things spiritual or