IN MEMORIAM.
A Tribute to the Memory of Mrs. Emma F. Bennett.

It is with feelings of the deepest sorrow we announce the sudden death of the wife of Mr. A. F. Bennett, Jr., of Savannah, Ga.  She was taken ill on the night of Sunday, 22nd of April, and died the following Sunday morning, from prostration brought on by an obstinate diarrhea; which would not yield to any of the remedies advised by her very able physician, Dr. Wm. Duncan.

Previous to her sickness, and in fact while on a visit to her parents in this county, last fall, she seemed possessed with a presentment that she would never live through another year.  Although she was lively and cheerful, and had the utmost confidence in her physician and friends, they were never able to direct her mind from the current of thought in which she had fallen.

On the night of her death, she conversed with her friends freely, expressed a perfect readiness to meet death, and desired that her infant should be sent home to the dear mother for her care and protection.  Throughout her illness she bore her suffering with womanly fortitude, and it seemed hard that a sure and relentless fate should have decreed her demise.  In her death society has lost one of its brightest ornaments, the church an exemplary member.

She was a native of that grand old State, South Carolina, where she received much of her early education.  She also attended the female college at Cassville, Ga.  Her etiquette and eloquence made her admired wherever she went, and her kind, generous nature and winning ways, made her many warm and dear friends.  We doubt if Bartow County ever had a young lady who had more true and devoted friends.  Many of her amiable ways she derived from her accomplished and excellent aunt, Mrs. D. Williams, with whom she resided for several years.

But she is gone, we will never see her on earth again, our loss is her eternal gain.  She has crossed over and awaits us on the other shore.

The sweet month of May had come
The trees had just begun to ope their tiny leaves,
When the “reaper Death” visited her earthly home,
And bound her in his sheaves.

Cease fond husband, cease your weeping
For the one you loved so well;
Though ‘neath the sod she now is sleeping,
Her spirit in Heaven forever dwells,

Cease, fond friends, cease your sorrowing,
Her sweet voice you hear no more;
Sweeter songs she now is singing,
On that bright, celestial shore.

‘Tis sad to know her seat on earth will be forever vacant, and it will be sad to visit scenes of old, where in the smiling morn of life she lived and moved in all the beauty of perfect womanhood, her we knew and loved so well, and it will be sad to see her little orphan babe weeping and sobbing over its mother’s grave.

Miss Emma F. Leake, for that was her maiden name, joined the Baptist Church at Mt. Zion, with her very dear friend, Miss Della Colbert.  They were devoted to their minister, Col. James Ryals, and early imbibed his religious teachings.

She was interred in the Presbyterian burying ground at Euharlee, on the 1st day of May.  The body rested on a table in front of the pulpit.  On the metallic coffin were placed the most beautiful flowers of the early Spring.  The funeral sermon was preached by her devoted pastor, Col. Ryals.  We had heard him often when full of gospel enthusiasm, but never had we seen him display more feeling and pathos, than on this solemn occasion.  She was a member of his flock and devoted to her minister.  His heart and mind were on his theme, and he was equal to the emergency.  Never before have we listened to so able a funeral discourse.  It may be equaled but we do not see how that sermon can be surpassed.  Every word uttered so full of meaning and so appropriate.

Mrs. Bennette was a lady of peculiar loveliness, the eldest daughter of Mr. B. T. and Mrs. Martha E. Leake.  No death which has ever occurred in the community in which she lived caused so much general and deep sorrow.  She was only twenty-nine years of age, and left one child but a few days old.  No wife had a more devoted husband, and he certainly has the warmest sympathies of friends here and at home, but none more deeply felt then ours.

A wife, a mother gone.
Gone to the place where angels dwell.
Where there’s no tears, no sad farewells,
No death up there, no, none.

A husband, father, too
Laments the sad loss of a wife,
The saddest blow of all his life,
He loved her fond and true.

Kind friends do not despair,
Don’t call her back from that pure land.
But take her child by the hand,
And meet her “over there.”

She’ll watch for you and wait,
And when you leave this world of sin.
You’ll find her there to let you in
Through Heaven’s pearly gate.

And angels at God’s shrine,
Shall lead you on that happy day,
And look you in the face and say,
“Our Father—these are mine.”