We. publish elsewhere a short' paragraph calling attention -to the notice in our: obituary column. of' the death of Miss Fay: © Tb: is not often that we extend to any length the notices of those residents who pass away from amongst us, because there. is an ever present danger of saying perhaps only a-few words too much, and thereby touching private sensibilities, with good intention but with a painful effect. In the case before us, however, we have no reason to fear that we shall sey anything that will jar on the feelings of kindred, for Miss Fay had long outlived the early family ties and was wholly devoted to her missionary duties. Her home and her work were in China, and there are, we are assured, no surviving friends who would not consider that we neglected a daty if we merely recorded hor death in " single frigid line, Miss Fay's firet work: in China was the superintendence of a school for teaching English to China boys, in 1851. She toiled at this employment for ten years; and, indeed, with two intermit. sions, one when she visited Europe in 1868-4, and the other when she was compelled to go to America te recruit exhausted health; school teaching was the work of her life. The marked Kcindness and appreciation which she received during her visit to the United States seemed to have a beneficial effect, and she returned with fresh energy; but the work she had done in earlier times had told upon her, and during recent years she has been a shadow of her former energetic self, The life of a schoolmistress has not much incident, but those who had opportunities of see ing Miss Fay with her pupils, and who were: able to test their acquirements, are unanimous in praising her work, which was conscientious and devoted in an eminent degree.
Hor strong point-was her thorough knowledge of the Chinese Classics, and the power she possessed of putting herself as it were into the Chinese mind, and fooling with and appealing to those whom she was instructing. She was carefal to follow out all the threads of thought that could possibly afford a clue which once grasped might help to introduce a fact of Western history or a doctrine of the Christian religion into the intricate chambers of the native mind. This was the special gift with which she was endowed, and which she had cultivated with the most painstaking diligence. The Chinese held hor in great respect, as she presented to them a type of character which they are not often permitted to see in the Missionary ranks, viz., the character of a woman learned in the lore which seems tothemabove all price. clear that this scholarship was a "coign of vantage" which enabled Miss Fay to introduce the doctrines of the Cross with singular and admirable effect.
In addition to her Chinese studies, Miss Fay had large stores of erudition. Like George Herbert's Country Parson she valued all "accessory knowledges," and'it was impossible to be in her company. without gaining a striking fact, or a happy suggestion, an apt illustration, or a quotation from some theologian, poet, or philosopher, which helped the subject under discussion. Her acquaintance with the Greek and Latin Classics, with the masterpieces of French oratory, notably Bossuet and Massillon, and with the Italian poets, specially Dante, was rare and critical, Her relaxation was the study of authors whose names were scarcely known to many of her colleagues, and she devoted herself with as much heartiness to the mastery of the books she read in her well earned and scanty leisure as to her Chinese work. It was, in fact, impossible for Miss Fay to do anything la a slovenly languid way. It is obvious that we can only speak in these columns of the side of Miss Fay's life which was presented to those who knew her as a teacher and a friend. The inner and more sacred portions of it, which were passed in devotion as simple as it was earnest and assiduous, we can only refer to and pass on. The Missionary cause has undoubtedly lost a usefal servant, and those who are left behind would do well to follow as carefully as they can the example set them by the good woman whose twenty-eight years' toil has just ended. It was said of a Brit ish officer in India, "If all the English were like Macleod, India would be Christian," and we may say that "if all the Missionaries were like the late Lydia Fay, all the foreign residents would be far more zealously on the side of Christ than they are now."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.