as the times were troublous, the traveling very bad and the country full of soldiers. She reached Paris in March, 1815. There she witnessed all the momentous affairs that preluded the famous "Hundred Days." Mr. Adams was next appointed Minister to England, and they made their home near London. In 1817 they returned to the United States. Mr. Adams served as Secretary of State for eight years, and Mrs. Adams did the honors of their home in Washington. When her husband was elected President, she became the mistress of the White House. There she displayed the same quiet elegance and simplicity that had distinguished her in so many prominent situations. Failing health forced her into semi-retirement. She ceased to appear in fashionable circles, but still presided at public receptions. After the expiration of President Adams' term of office, her retirement was complete. The closing years of her life were spent in the care of her family and the practice of domestic virtues. She died on 14th May, 1852, and was buried by the side of her husband in the family burying ground at Quincy, Mass.
ADAMS, Mrs. Mary Mathews, poet, born 23rd October, 1840. She is of Irish birth and parentage, but having come to this country when she was a mere child, she may easily claim America as her mental birthplace. Her father was a devout Protestant, and her mother an ardent Catholic; but
MARY MATHEWS ADAMS.
with fine breeding and a sincere and tender affection between them, the religious inheritance of the sons and daughters of John Mathews and his wife is rich in faith and tolerance. Their American home was in Brooklyn, N. Y., and there Mary, their oldest daughter, was educated, mainly at Packer Institute, from which she passed into a graded school, where for nine years she was a successful teacher. Her well-equipped mind and her winsome personality proving a rare combination of endowments for the work. After that period of successful effort Miss Mathews was married to C. M. Smith, and for five years her life was passed in a western city. At the end of that time she returned to Brooklyn, a childless widow, and again entered her favorite field of labor. Her enthusiasm as a student, which she always has been, finds its best result in her Shakespearian study. She has for years gathered about her, in her own home and elsewhere, classes of ladies, and her method of leadership is at once unique and inspiring. The refined literary appreciation manifested in this work reveals itself in her poems. The "Epithalamium" is perhaps the best known. Her verse is largely lyrical, and her themes include romance, heroism, and religion. In 1883 she became the wife of A. S. Barnes, the well-known publisher. He lived but a short time, and in London, in 1890, Mrs. Barnes was married to Charles Kendall Adams, the President of Cornell University, and at once assumed a position of intellectual, social, and moral responsibility for which her special mental gifts, her cultivation and her noble ideals of manly and womanly character fit her in a marked manner. There she has opportunity to impress the height and largeness of her standards upon college students of both sexes, from all points of the country and remote lands. Mrs. Adams is one of the highest types of her race. That she has written less than the public craves is partly due to her own under-estimation of her poetic gifts, and partly because she lives a religion of true hospitality and is an earnest home-maker, which talent is more time-consuming than that of a housekeeper. Above and beyond all charms of pen and speech, she is a practical and sincerely tolerant woman who transforms much of the prose of everyday life into poetry by her devotion to all beautiful works and things.
ADKINSON. Mrs. Mary Osburn, temperance reformer, born in Rush county, Ind., 28th July, 1843. Her husband, the Rev. L. G. Adkinson, D. D., is President of New Orleans University. She has illustrated what an earnest worker can accomplish in the fields lying within reach of one busied with the cares of domestic life. She is the daughter of Harmon Osburn, who was a prominent farmer in Rush county. Ind. Her mother was a woman of great force of character and often entertained ministers, teachers and other guests of refinement in her home. Miss Osburn was educated in Whitewater College, Centerville. Ind. She began her married life as a pastor's wife in Laurel, Ind. There, by teaching a part of the time, she supplemented the small salary received by her husband and added many valuable books to their library. Removing to Madison, she was persuaded to take a leading part in organizing the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church in that city. For ten or twelve years she did much successful work; she was four times unanimously elected president of the Madison district association, she was the association's delegate in 1883 to the State convention, and in 1884 to to the branch meeting in Kalamazoo, Mich. In 1873 she united with the temperance women of the city in the woman's crusade and has since been actively engaged in temperance work. She is now superintendent of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union among the colored people in the State of Louisiana and is working with much success. Many societies have been organized and hundreds of young people have taken the triple pledge of abstinence from intoxicating drink, tobacco and profanity. Mrs. Adkinson is also matron in New Orleans University and teacher of sewing and dressmaking. While thus active in philanthropic
