"Died, in this city, on the seventh inst., Mary Elizabeth, eldest daughter of B.H. and Phereby R. Sheppard, aged about nine years.
This lovely child had exhibited striking and most interesting traits of character from an early age and precocity of intellect which gave anxious foreboding of an untimely end. For years past, while yet in the tender age of childhood, she seemed to realize that earth was not her abiding place, and assured her friends time after time that she would leave them soon, and go to that better world, where, as she said, there was no trouble, nor pain nor sorrow.
In her last illness, which was protracted and painful, she was gentle and patient and manifested a peculiar anxiety that her friends, and especially her devoted mother, should not mourn her nor be distressed on her account. When suffering with pain or delirium of mind she could be soothed and calmed more by having passages of the Gospel read, than by the most tender expressions of sympathy and hope, from parents and others and one of the last requests she made of her affectionate mother, was that the Bible might always have a place on the table in the parlor. She was fond of birds and flowers, and saw them in her last most charming visions, and with these was associated the memory of her little brother, recently deceased, the youngest of the family. Thus, the last has been taken first, the first last. Such is the will of God and may the bereaved parents find His grace sufficient for them under these trying afflictions."
