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A
History of Bradford, VT Montpelier, 1875 |
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| Pages 228-229 | |
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228 quent lives. Captain Bliss died May 8th, 1851, in the fifty-fourth year of his age; but she continued nearly twenty-two years longer, thus occupying the same comfortable farm house, on the bank of Waits River, near its confluence with the Connecticut, for the long period, of sixty-five years. Mr. and Mrs. Bliss had thirteen children, two of whom died in their infancy; all the rest ‘lived to marry and remove, one after another, to their several new homes, with the exception of one of the sons, who permanently remained with his mother, and at her decease was left still at the old homestead, the last there belonging of all its former numerous and happy occupants. Mrs. Bliss left at her decease four sons and five daughters; somewhat widely dispersed through this country; among others, Neziah, a graduate of Vermont university, an attorney at law, in Missouri, and George, a practicing physician, in Ohio. He, after an absence of thirty-six years, being informed of his mother’s illness, directly telegraphed that he had set out for home; but the news, which but a few days before would have thrilled his mother’s heart with joy, came a few hours too late and when the Doctor, with his two daughters, arrived, her remains had been for two days resting in the silent tomb. A sad disappointment it was to the, visitors; but there were kind brothers and sisters, with other relatives and friends, to receive them most cordially, and mingle their tears of grief and gladness with theirs. It may not be amiss to say here that Mr. Amos Worthen, State Geologist of Illinois, well and favorably known for his voluminous publications in that interesting department of natural science,, was a brother of the deceased, and a native of Bradford. Mrs. Bliss left thirty-two grandchildren and eight great~ grandchildren, a posterity of forty-nine persons, to rise up and call her blessed. Her own children, at least, know |
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229 with what patience, loving kindness, and perseverance she labored through all their lives for their comfort; but the intense desire and consuming anxiety which she felt for their spiritual and everlasting goad, they can never fully appreciate. She willingly wore out her life in ministering to others; in doing good to all, as she had opportunity. Solomon’s description of the virtuous women, in the 31st chapter of Proverbs, must have been penned with some such specimen as she was distinctly in view.But she did not depend on any of these things ‘for salvation. During a season of special refreshing from the presence of the Lord, in the Summer of 1831, she was moved to consecrate herself heartily to the blessed Savior, and to trust in -Him alone for pardon, sanctification and life everlasting. With more than thirty others, she that year made a public profession of her faith and determination thenceforth to be the Lord’s, and serve Him, united with the same church to which her parents belonged, and so continued to the last. She, while able to attend and hear, delighted in the public services, of the Sabbath, and when deprived of these privileges found great satisfaction in her Bible and hymn book. In her last sickness she was sweetly resigned to the Divine will, bountifully sustained by the promises and consolations of the Gospel, and at the close of her last Sabbath on earth, March 2, 1873, at the age of eighty three years, lacking forty days, passed peacefully away to her final rest and blessedness in Heaven On the subsequent Wednesday her funeral services were attended at the church where she had long been accustomed to worship, and her precious remains laid down to repose with their kindred dead until "all that are in the graves shall hear the, voice of the Son of God. and come forth." God grant that all those for whose salvation she so long prayed and labored, may with her arise to glory, honor, and a blessed immortality. S.McK. |
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