ner, whose distresses no vice of its own has produced, and no
exertions of its own can relieve. Should any one of you in your walks
through our city during its inclement winter behold a child almost
naked, shivering with cold and fainting with hunger, and did you learn
that it had wandered unprotected from the home where its only surviving
parent had just expired in all the wretchedness of poverty and disease,
and finding its mother's voice silent, her hands that had cherished it
cold, and her eyes closed, the little one had gone forth weeping and
alone, would any of you refuse it a home, and food and protection?--It
is this sacred duty which our Institution has performed for many such
suffering and innocent beings. Where, if not to such an object, can the
heart send forth its sympathies without restraint, and give itself to
all the delights of a glowing generosity?

But I need not tell you of these heavenly satisfactions as I see around
me those who have long known and shared them, for this Institution has,
from its foundation, been a favored and fostered one in our community.
Many are the labors that have cheerfully been bestowed upon its
interests, many and generous the contributions given to it, and many and
ardent the prayers offered up in its behalf to the throne of grace. Of
those who first united themselves in this work and labor of love, I find
that all have been removed, and have gone to receive their eternal
reward.

The last of this respected and excellent band has recently been summoned
away from us, and she went gently and peacefully, in a blessed old age,
in full preparation, followed by the tears and benedictions of the widow
and the fatherless whom she had relieved, and in beautiful accordance
with the meek, the honorable, and useful existence, which she had
mercifully been permitted to accomplish. One of the earliest founders of
this Asylum, and for many years its first Directress, she had uniformly
given to it her countenance and assistance; and dying, bequeathed to it
a generous evidence of her attachment. Long will her memory be cherished
in this community, as a model of the efficient but unassuming and lovely
graces that constitute the character of the christian matron; long will
it be cherished--and especially by you, Ladies, the present Managers of
the Asylum, who have been witnesses of the fidelity, the courtesy, the
discretion, the zeal, with which her duties as associated with you were
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