This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Payne Brownson Clarke Matthews Classification: Obituary Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/2YB.2ACI/2073 Message Board Post: Obituary Mrs. Esther Cornelia Brownson consort of Elder I. K. Brownson pastor of the Baptist Church in this place [Hillsborough, OH] departed this life January 25, 1846. She was the third and youngest daughter of Elijah Payne Esq. of Hamilton Madison County New York. Her father long known as an estimable citizen of that place died some three years since, her widowed mother yet survives. She was born March 22 1816. While yet in her youth she sought and obtained divine mercy and minde (sic) to a profession of that piety which distinguished her ancestors. She diligently improved the opportunities afforded her of mental and moral culture and this, joined with an amiable church won for herself in the East zero large circle of devoted friends. In 1840 she was married and removed to Greenfield Ohio. Separation from the paternal roof and the endeared friends of her youth, was an event in itself painful, but compensated by her pious desire of more enlarged usefulness in another spher! e. The embarrassments of this, and of forming new attachments in a land of strangers she sustained with christian meekness and fortitude. In the death of this most estimable female society at large and more particularly the town of Hillsborough the place of her late residence has sustained an irreparable loss. Her death was sudden and unexpected. Her last illness was brief and painful yet she endured it with uncomplaining patients. Dark and mysterious are the ways of divine providence and where it not for certitude in assurance that "Infinite wisdom cannot err " Nor goodness be unkind." Our grief would be inconsolable. We would sink at once into gloom and despondency and be overwhelmed in despair. But God has assured us that he "does not willingly grieve nor afflict the children of men" and that the design of all his chastisement are for "our profit" that we might be the partakers of his holiness and ultimately share in the rewards of "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." The author of this brief memoir cannot but feel deeply while writing this notice. The decrease was his personal friend and in a world like this, the death of those we we so highly esteemed vibrates most painfully upon one sensibilities. It was the privilege of the writer to form an acquaintance with the Mrs. B. In the early part of the year 1844 while stationed in the Methodist E. Church in Greenfield. Since which time the field of our ministerial labors have been in the same place with that of her husband. And now that she is left us for her eternal home in the sky it affords me great pleasure to bear public testimony to the many virtues and christian graces which adorn her life. Being governed in her religious course by principle rather than impulse of feeling, her piety was constant, uniform, invincible. Processed of a mind and no ordinary cast and talents of high order, combined with an amiable disposition, peculiar firmness of character, refine by a liberal education and sanctified by grace; qualified her in an eminent degree of usefulness. She filled with the exact propriety all the relations of social and domestic life. As the wife and companion of a Christian minister she knew how to suffer and endure; discharging all the responsibility duties of her station with singular fidelity and cheerfulness ever making her home the place of peace and domestic comfort. Her retiring manners natural sweetness of disposition, charity, and benevolence of heart secured for her the esteem and friendship of all with whom she had intercourse. As might have been expected to her last moment saw where peaceful and happy. With the soul calmly stayed on God! , and the firm and tranquil hope of the inheritance of the blessed immortality she left the sorrowful scenes of earth to be a welcome, we doubt not to the " joys of her Lord " where "No sighs shall mingle with this song That warble from the immortal tongues" Her remains were carried to the M. E. Church where an eloquent and appropriate funeral sermon was preached by the Rev. Mr. C. A. Clarke of the Baptist Church of Greenfield Ohio. The sudden and unexpected stroke by which the has been removed from our midst has filled us all with emotions of the deepest recollection of her many Christian virtues and superior moral worth. It is believed she was not disappointed in doing good in all the relation she sustained; and especially as a teacher of youth of her own sex she will soon have not soon be forgotten. She will live long deeply enshrined in the "hearts best affection" how many of her pupils; especially the young, ladies of Oakland Female Seminary. The following tribute of respect to her memory from the Principal of that institution will no doubt be read with great pleasure and satisfaction by her numerous friends. Hillsborough O. February 4, 1846. Deer Brother Gaddis - Mrs. Brownson was one year a teacher in the Oakland Seminary, and I was sorry when her domestic duties made it necessary for her to leave the school. I valued her services very highly, on account for christian example and lady-like manners, as well as her superior intellectual qualifications as a teacher. The young ladies were all found of her and the members of her own class particularly so. She took a deep interest in the welfare of the school, and labored with indefatigable industry and perseverance to have for classes thoroughly instructed him what ever they were studying. The news of her death deeply affected me I feel that I have lost a friend and a sister, a sister Christ. I the most cheerful bear my testimony To her exalted piety and worth, as she was not a member of that branch of the church to which I belong. Our christian regards should be extended to all who love a certified Redeemer. "Not in a partys (sic) narrow banks confined Nor by the sameness of opinion joined But cemented by the Redeemers blood And bound together in the heart of God." Yours truly J. Mc D. Matthews. Alas that we should "spend our lives as a tale is told. " How trenchant the sojourn of those we love! Today our hearts are wedded with them, in the day in the sacred ties are dissolved by the icy fingers of deaf and [seven lines at the top of the next column are missing. Sadly the paper is not listed.]