Page:Scenes in my Native Land.pdf/240

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236
LONGEVITY AND PIETY.

habits of regularity, doubtless promoted health, and longevity, and aided in the preservation of that vigor of intellect, which remained unimpaired to the last.

She revered the teachers and ordinances of religion, and made the Scriptures, with which she had been acquainted from youth, a part of her daily study. Books of high literary character, especially those of historical and theological research, were sources of unfailing delight; and she gave an example of happily combining their love, with the faithful discharge of relative and domestic duty.

Her more than fourscore years were not suffered to chill her participation of either social, or intellectual enjoyment. Her retentive memory was preserved entire, and the impressions made by passing events, or interesting authors, seemed as vivid, as those engraven at earlier periods of life. She was reading the graphic tour of a traveller in ancient climes, and speaking with animation of its varied descriptions, when the last messenger, a sudden paralysis, touched her brow, and checked the flow of utterance. A few days of gentle, and patiently endured suffering, divided the active duties of this life, from the perfect rest of another.

The mansion, thus rendered venerable by historic lore, and the memory of the sainted dead, was removed from its original site on Main Street, to Buckingham Street, in the spring of 1842. Its place is now occupied by the "Wadsworth Athenæum," thus named