These are biographies that were in the files of E.F. & L. Harvey. They have been gleaned over many years and from various sources. The language is often antiquated but the facts speak for themselves.

Adams, Sarah Flower

SARAH FLOWER ADAMS

So by my woes to be
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!

Propped among the gay pillows on the sofa, Sara Adams looked frail and wan, but still very attractive in spite of her long illness.  It was three years now . . . three slow, dragging years since the curtain rang down on her theatrical career.  She sighed, and turned back to her reading.  But she was restless today, and her mind kept wandering from the page.

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Addams, Jane

JANE ADDAMS

Social Reformer, Founder of Hull-House
Born: Cedarville, Illinois, September 6, 1860
Died:  Chicago, Illinois, May 21, 1935

After graduating from Rockford College in 1881, Jane Addams went to Woman’s Medical College in Philadelphia.  But when she herself encountered health problems, she left for Europe to recuperate.  In 1888, she visited London’s Toynbee Hall, a pioneer settlement house, and decided to devote her life to helping the urban poor.

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Agatha

AGATHA

Three Trials

In an old city in the old time, when Christianity was a new religion and Heathenism was trying to subdue it, there dwelt a woman named Agatha, with her husband and two children. I don’t know whether she was handsome nor whether her children were beautiful; I don’t know whether her husband was rich, nor whether their house was a grand place with pictures on the walls, and marble floors, and fine statues, and leaping fountains, but the beauty of holiness belonged to them all, and the “true riches” were in their dwelling. The mother had heard of Christ, and had believed: she had taught her little ones to trust in Him: the husband had been won by the conversation of the wife, and they were all bent on the same journey, that had the golden city of the skies for its end.

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Agnew, Eliza

ELIZA AGNEW

Called The Mother of a Thousand Daughters in Ceylon (1850-1883)

Would you like to hear what the study of geography did for a little girl, who was born as long ago as the year 1807? It was in New York City that this girl studied her geography lessons, and learned about the great world. Perhaps she was the only one in the class that thought about the great number of heathen people in the countries far away that were so interesting in many ways, but Eliza Agnew thought about them. She thought about them so much and so earnestly, that at last she made up her mind to go as a missionary as soon as she was old enough. She was eight when she made this resolve.

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Alcott, Louisa M., Recollections

LOUISA M. ALCOTT

During my first visit to Boston in 1862, I saw at an evening reception a tall, thin young woman standing alone in a corner.  She was plainly dressed, and had that watchful, defiant air with which the woman whose youth is slipping away is apt to face the world which has offered no place to her.  Presently she came up to me.

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Aldersey, Mary

Mary Aldersey

The Witch of Ningpo
1797-1868

Mary Aldersey went to China as an independent missionary, at the age of 40—the first woman missionary to China. She had had great hopes of going much sooner, but family commitments made this impossible. She spent some time in Java on the way, ministering to the Chinese there, and eventually reached Ningpo where she started a girls’ school. Her motives and work were much misunderstood as the following from her biography The Witch of Ningpo by Joyce Reason, will show:

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Alexander, Cecil Frances

CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER

The Children’s Hymnist

1823-1895

Just one hundred and thirty years ago, Cecil Frances Humphreys was born in the city of Dublin. She was the second daughter of Major John Humphreys, of Milton House, Strathbane, Ireland.
In 1850 she married the Rev. William Alexander, a country Rector, who ultimately became Archbishop of Armagh, and Primate of all Ireland.

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Andre-Walther, Madame

Some recollections of

MADAME ANDRE-WALTHER

A true mother of Charity

Not far from the magnificent palace and gardens of Versailles, is a charming place known as Les Ombrages, the property and residence of the late Madame Andre-Walther. During the Franco-German war, and during the more terrible time when the Communists had possession of Paris, the town and the neighborhood of Versailles always presented a scene of busy and anxious excitement. The din of arms, the tramp of troops. The mingled turmoil of military and political life, seemed strangely contrasted with the natural beauty and cheerful gaiety of the French “Court-suburb” in times of peace.

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Angiolina

Angiolina:

The Italian Christian Housewife

“The crowd worships you today, tomorrow kills you, and then the next day adores you dead.”—Monti.

The true Christian life lightens and brightens what this world calls the drudgery of daily toil. And we are now going to consider the life of a noble Christian woman, whose nobility did not shine amidst the grandeur of Italian marble palaces, but in the humble spheres of the common people. Angiolina, as wife and mother, took part in many a combat in the battle of life, and came off victorious to the end.

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Ann, Holy

Holy Ann

The pray-er Prevails

An authority on prayer says in substance that the way to get a thing which is purchasable is to pay for it. The way to get a thing which is to be earned is to work for it. The way to get a thing which is to be given is to ask for it. The Christian in receiving from God has neither to pay nor to earn. What he gets from God comes by gift, and the way to receive is simply to ask. God says, “Ask and ye shall receive” (Matt. 7:7). In Matthew 7:11 He says, “How much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him.” In John 14:11, “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name”—again He says in John 14:14, “If ye ask, I will do.” God does not say, “If ye shall chafe, or scheme, or plan, I will do,” but if ye ask, I will do. All this, however, if we abide in Him.

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