The other is just published, called "Christmas Bells," and was intended as a surprise and a present at Christmas to the eminent young physician and surgeon who carried her successfully through the terrible sickness of last summer above alluded to at Hanover, N. H., and to whom it is dedicated. When some of us at the coming Christmas may be listening to her own sweet "Christmas Bells," she will be listening to a far higher, and sweeter, and nobler strain.
In domestic life Mrs. Rice was an admired wife, a kind and tender mother, a generous friend. Born, I believe, in the Portsmouth Navy Yard, and having been brought up by an uncle, who was an officer on the old Constitution,—a beautiful model of which, made by her uncle on board the old "Ironsides," she always kept in her room,—she seemed to regulate her household, as it were, by naval, or military regulations. In all her household arrangements there was the same spirit of order, of quiet, of subordination, and obedience. And yet with all this strictness, it was the law of love. For her servants loved her and never left her, living with her continuously for years, and nothing ever taking them away but their marriage. It was delightful, in these days of domestic insubordination, to be in a household where the lady of the house, and not the servants, was the mistress.
To her friends, Mrs. Rice was always ready to dispense a quiet and elegant hospitality. To the poor, she was always a generous and sympathizing friend, giving to them not only of her worldly goods, but what in many cases was a still higher and better charity, advice and sympathy, and her best exertions to put them in a way to help themselves.
But there was a still higher character which our departed friend possessed, that of the true and sincere Christian. Without a particle of cant, or bigotry, or uncharitableness, she was a believer in Christianity; and it was not a dreamy, uncertain, hazy belief, like much of what is called Christianity at the present day, but with mind, heart, and soul, she believed in a personal God; she believed in God's revelation; she believed in the Son of God, who came to redeem us from our sins; she believed in the Holy Spirit, the glorious and blessed Trinity, the holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, and the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.
Mrs. Rice had been, for a long time, a communicant in the Episcopal church.
