BUT HE THAT GIVETH HIS MIND TO THE LAW OF THE MOST HIGH, AND IS OCCUPIED IN THE MEDITATION THEREOF, WILL SEEK OUT THE WISDOM OF ALL THE ANCIENT, AND BE OCCUPIED IN PROPHECIES.

HE WILL KEEP THE SAYINGS OF THE RENOWNED MEN; AND WHERE SUBTLE PARABLES ARE, HE WILL BE THERE ALSO.

MANY SHALL COMMEND HIS UNDERSTANDING; AND SO LONG AS THE WORLD ENDURETH, IT SHALL NOT BE BLOTTED OUT; HIS MEMORIAL SHALL NOT DEPART AWAY, AND HIS NAME SHALL LIVE FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION.

--Ecclesiasticus xxxix, 1, 2, 9 vs.

ONE gloomy winter afternoon many years ago I entered the old study on Temple Street so familiar to all the old friends of Dr. Harwood. The welcome end of a dreary day was drawing near. The shadows had begun already to gather about the book-lined walls, and in the soft darkness the Doctor sat in deep and silent meditation. Rousing himself from his abstraction, his mind began to move along its accustomed channels, and his conversation took the turn it always did unless there was some significant event of wide general interest to engage his attention. After a time he took his Bible and read the passage from which these words are taken. It was a matter of great satisfaction to him that within [3/4] the Book which was his life-long study, there was this clear and emphatic appreciation of the life which he had led and which was the key to his own history, that is the life of the scholar. In this word "Scholar" we have the whole story from the earliest days until the latest hour. His was the scholar's temperament: and because he was a scholar preeminently, the story of his life is mainly that of a mental history. The outward events are few and insignificant except in their relation to his inner development.

But a few weeks since, in speaking of a distinguished man of the early part of the nineteenth century, he said: "There are many remarkable men who are not interesting. . . ." All who knew him at all well would confess, I think, that in his own case this statement did not apply, for he was a most interesting man. At first sight it does not seem an easy task to sum up in a brief space the chief facts of a life so long as his, but enough can be said to give a glimpse, at least, of the outward movement of that history which is now ended, and then try and state some of the reasons why he was such an interesting and significant figure in every life into which he had truly entered.

Edwin Harwood was the eldest child of Lilburn and Sarah A. Harwood. He was born in Philadelphia on August 21, 1822. Philadelphia was at that time the largest city in the country, and numbered about 120,000 in population. Some of the best traditions of our country and of our Church are associated with Philadelphia, and the man above all others to whom our Church owes most, the great Bishop White, was a figure which his memory carried from boyhood to extreme old [4/5] age. It is only in a very imperfect manner that we can picture to ourselves these early years. Dr. Harwood was not at all a vain man and never made boast of his early studies; but from fragments of conversation gathered through many years something of that eager boyhood comes back. He was very proud of one of his classical teachers, a Mr. John Sanderson, the author of "The American in Paris," a book now known to but few, but as clever and witty a book of travels as any ever written by an American. Mr. Sanderson had the true, old-fashioned passion for the classics, and the young boy, before he was twelve years old, had read through the "Collectanae Graeca Majora," which for those unfamiliar with the work I will state contains about 800 to 1000 pages of selections from the greatest of the Greek writers, with several hundred pages of Latin notes: an amount of classical literature probably in excess of that read by the average college graduate of to-day. It was during these early years that Dr. Harwood laid the foundation of that wide classical knowledge and that familiarity with the ancient tongues which enabled him to read the Christian writers of the early ages of the Church in their own language, and by means of which also he could, in his earlier years, carry on a conversation in Latin with scholars abroad.

At fourteen years of age he entered the University of Pennsylvania and graduated in the class of 1840, when but eighteen years of age. Here too his exceptional ability enabled him to utilize opportunities which duller men might have passed by. Henry Reed, that brilliant young American, the friend of Wordsworth, had entered upon his professorship of Rhetoric and English Literature [5/6] in the University, the very year young Harwood entered it. In the next year Reed published the first American edition of Wordsworth, and his eager and refined intelligence, his passionate enthusiasm for the new literary movement which had already begun, no doubt influenced his young pupil most profoundly. His literary instincts were aroused, and his taste cultivated and inspired by the influence of this vivid and striking personality.

In the autumn of 1840 he entered Andover Seminary with the intention of studying for the Presbyterian ministry. At that time Andover was at the height of its reputation. It had among its teachers Moses Stuart, Leonard Woods, and Edwards A. Park. The students were as remarkable a body in many ways as their teachers. No stronger band of young men has ever entered the ministry of the Christian church in this country than that which was graduated from the various seminaries of the land during the decade extending from 1835 to 1845. Andover had a far larger proportion of these men within her walls, at one time or another, than any other theological school. The late Dr. Harris of Yale Theological School, Dr. Hitchcock, and Dr. Shedd of Union Theological Seminary, New York, two teachers whom no grateful pupil can ever forget; Dr. Charles Hall and Dr. Richard S. Storrs of Brooklyn both belonged to this period, and also the life-long friend and fellow soldier of Dr. Harwood--the brilliant, the eloquent, the heroic Washburn.

The situation of the religious world at this time was very remarkable, and men seldom faced a condition more turbulent and chaotic. A great revolution was taking place in the spiritual history of Europe. Strauss's Life of [6/7] Jesus had been published in 1835, and Germany was in convulsions. The long battle with the Tubingen School had begun, although only echoes of the strife had at this time reached this side of the waters. But there was an uneasy feeling in the air even here.

The Oxford Movement had passed into its final stages, and the most unique document in the whole history of the English Church, Tract No.. 90, was to be published in the next year. But neither Tubingen nor Oxford was to decide the fate of these young men, however much they might in turn influence or affect them. Andover, too, whatever it did, had to yield place to a greater power. The mighty genius of the one whom Carlyle called the prophet of Highgate Hill, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, laid its spell upon them, and upon none did it leave a deeper impression than upon the mind and heart of Edwin Harwood. Through the influence of Coleridge he passed on to the study of German theology and philosophy which were to be the occupation of the larger part of his life, and in which he was one of the pioneers in this country. This was the most splendid period of Germany's great philosophical progress, and in all the departments of theological science Dr. Harwood was a most ardent and laborious student. Thus it has always been. The men of original force and intellectual character profit by all their living teachers have to tell, but live apart in the life of some mind which the schools know not.

Before the end of two years young Harwood's Presbyterian intentions had evaporated, and it would have been a subtle mind that could have detected in the great Broad Churchman of a later day any vestiges of the former purpose. Acting upon his newly-formed conviction, at [7/8] the end of the Seminary year of 1842 he left Andover and entered the General Seminary in New York. The Oxford Movement, being a theological rather than a religious revival, appealed to the controversial instincts of scholars and students rather than to the sympathies and religious instincts of the people; and as a consequence the theological schools of the Church became storm-centres, and every man's character was tested as by fire. But his own language best describes the course of events during the next few years. "He graduated from the General Theological Seminary in 1844, and was ordained deacon the last day of June the same year, by Bishop Benjamin T. Onderdonk, in St. Thomas's Church, New York. The Church then, especially in New York, was entering upon a day of 'stress and storm.' There was great agitation in the air. The trustees of the General Theological Seminary held such a prolonged and stormy meeting that year, that the candidates to be ordained were admitted to the diaconate without undergoing the usual canonical examinations. Their seminary examinations were accepted instead, and they were presented by a member of the faculty. The authorities had no time to devote to the insignificant young graduates.

In the following August, Mr. Harwood was elected to take charge of Christ Church, Oyster Bay. There he remained until the spring of 1846, when he received and accepted an invitation to the rectorship of St. Paul's Church, East Chester. In the following year, having, in the meantime, been admitted to the priesthood by Bishop DeLancey, he went to St. James's Church, Hamilton Square, New York. Sixty-ninth street was then in the country. The church was a plain wooden structure, and [8/9] many members of the congregation were the owners of country seats on the banks of the East River, above and below Hell Gate. Several of these belonged to Grace Church, and when Dr. Taylor built, at the corner of Twenty-Eighth Street and Madison Avenue, the Chapel of Grace, Mr. Harwood was invited to take charge of it in 1850. The congregation grew rapidly, and in 1852 they ventured to organize a parish under the name of the Church of the Incarnation."

He was but thirty years of age at this time, and already a marked man. He was not only a singularly handsome man, with peculiarly dignified and polished manners, but the intense intellectual ardor of the man added attractiveness to a face of remarkable interest. It was during these years in New York that he became so intimately associated with Dr. Muhlenburg. No man of his age in our church probably had so much of the prophetic insight and the prophetic spirit as William Augustus Muhlenburg. He was now past fifty years of age, and in the full maturity of his powers. He won men by the irresistible charm of a perfectly pure and consecrated nature. The most gifted of the younger men were proud of his recognition, and returned it with an affection and devotion that were very touching. Speaking of him at this time, Dr. Harwood said: "He seemed to me then unlike any person I had ever known: he was utterly unlike all the clergymen of his own age." Dr. Washburn also wrote of him after his death: "It was at this time that I first knew him personally, and never can I forget the impression he left on me. . . . I loved him from that hour, and if I say what any think too enthusiastic, I can only reply that they did not know him." Of all the great and good [9/10] men of our communion I believe it would be acknowledged by those who know, that the greatest presbyter we have ever had was William Augustus Muhlenburg. This was the man who chose Edwin Harwood as his friend. Nearly thirty years his senior, yet so won by the high enthusiasm, the pure character and the splendid intellect of the young man that he entered upon the most intimate relations of friendship with him. He made him share in all his thoughts, aspirations and dreams. He laid burdens upon his scholarship and asked his cooperation in the preparation of his paper, the Evangelical Catholic. So close was the tie between them that Mr. Harwood was regarded as knowing more of the mind and heart of Dr. Muhlenburg than any other man. It was at this time that the famous Memorial was presented to the House of Bishops by some earnest men who wished to lift not only the horizon and mind of the Church higher but also to deepen and purify its spirit. This movement is one of the landmarks of the history of the Church, a premonition of things to come also, but the labor was too heavy, the strain too great, and suddenly Mr. Harwood's health broke and it seemed as if his career was ended. But loving friends gathered around, proud to help him, and under the most imperative commands of his physicians he was carried hastily on board ship and sent alone on a long voyage to Europe. Singularly enough, his health began to improve immediately, and although his stay abroad was protracted on this account, yet his health was such that he was entirely capable of appreciating to the fullest extent the new world that lay before him. This was in many ways the most memorable year of his life. The greater part of the time was spent [10/11] in Italy, and again and again he loved to refer to those days, and linger wistfully about that golden past. His classical knowledge, his fine taste and extensive reading, his vivid and historic imagination, gave to that land, rich beyond all others in interesting associations and splendid memories, a charm which he felt most deeply. Years after, when Goethe spoke of the journey he had in his youth made to Italy, he said he had been home-sick for it ever since. In a way it was the same with Dr. Harwood. The impressions of that year were indelible, and all the resources of his wide, rich nature were taxed to the utmost by the almost passionate enthusiasm which those scenes and names aroused.

In point of ability, scholarship, practical experience, high ideals, and devotion to his work, he was, when he returned to this country, probably without a superior of his own age, but alas, he found that he had lost his voice; and all his dreams, and the great promise which his ability and position commanded, were shattered at once. But with that indomitable courage which all who know him must regard as one of his most remarkable qualities, he turned his face in another direction, determined that he would not be driven from the field. He accepted the chair of New Testament Exegesis, and also taught the Church history of the Middle Ages in the Berkeley Divinity School, at Middletown. Theology, however, with the history of the Church in its various aspects, were his favorite studies. These he pursued all his life, and he knew the great theological writers of the Christian church as few know them. His knowledge of the great Anglican divines was enough to entitle him to the name of scholar. Above all others he loved to study [11/12] and muse over the writings of the great Augustine, whom he ranked first in all the long array of Christian teachers. This in itself would be a fair test of his own knowledge and intellectual power, for it is only a great man that can really appreciate a great man.

The amount of close, exacting and exhausting intellectual labor which those years at Middletown represent is perfectly amazing, even to one who knows something of what hard work of that kind means. His natural physical endowment must have been almost perfect or he could not have endured it, but he grew stronger in every way each year, but after five or six years in the professor's chair he resigned to accept a call to the rectorship of Trinity Church, New Haven. This was in 1859; and until the day of his death New Haven was his home, and the city never had a more loyal citizen than he. What he was to the parish which he served for six and thirty years can only be told in the annals of that parish. Yet he was something more than a parish clergyman. He had in large measure the spirit of a great ecclesiastical statesman, and his eye was ever upon the life of the Church and the forces that are moving or governing society. Nothing is more characteristic of his foresight and judgment than the swiftness, decision and energy that threw him, in one of the very critical periods of our history, into the forefront of a movement that has had most decisive results upon our Church life. In the autumn of 1873 the Evangelical Alliance was held in New York, and leading theologians and scholars from all over Europe, with many prominent men in our own country, were present. Among these was Bishop Cummins, the Assistant-Bishop of Kentucky. At a [12/13] communion service held in a Presbyterian church in New York, he took such a part that a howl of rage rose up against him from that party in our Church to which he was opposed. The effect was to drive him out of our communion, and a great and dangerous schism seemed about to take place. The furious denunciations of bitter partisans only increased the danger. The next year, at the suggestion of Dr. Harwood, but with the cooperation of many other leading clergymen and some of the most influential bishops, the Church Congress was held in New York. Two things were done here. First, a safety valve was found for the pent-up feelings of many enthusiasts; and secondly, a calm and fair discussion of many of the great questions was brought about; and since that day it can be fairly said that the vehemence of theological debate has been materially decreased. It is not the place to estimate the full value of the Church Congress, but whatever its value the establishment of it is due more to Dr. Harwood than any other one man. It was his idea. The part he has played in the general councils of the Church should be set forth by one better qualified than the present writer, but wherever he was and whatever side he took, he was always felt.

Another and more difficult task remains. As to the man, what was he? how shall he be described? I knew him first only after he had reached the full maturity of his powers and was known throughout the Church, with his friend Dr. Washburn, as the two leading and most uncompromising Broad Churchmen in this country, and this, too, at a time when it cost something to be a liberal as indeed it still does if those convictions are deep and genuine. The first time I met him I felt I had found the [13/14] man I was looking for, and I never changed my mind. From that hour I saw him constantly, sometimes daily, until the day of his death. He gave me all I asked for, and more than I could appropriate, and I always found there were untouched treasures of knowledge and reflection which were ready when any new demand was made upon him. In Bacon's phrase, he was "the fullest man" I have ever known.

But I am beginning to tell you of him without so intending. Perhaps no way is better than to follow the path I have unconsciously turned upon. The first impression which anyone would receive in an extended conversation with him would be, I think, of his great intellectual power. His memory seemed sometimes almost marvelous in its accuracy, and this was only surpassed by the character of the things which he remembered. The thing was always worth remembering, and generally it was some significant and striking fact which threw new light upon the subject under discussion. He knew more, over a wider field, and knew it more accurately, than any man I have ever known. Truth to him was so sacred that her garments must not be soiled by slothful or irreverent hands. He was no mere encyclopedia of information. It was not mere book-learning which he possessed. He had thought deeply upon all the knowledge he had gained, and concentrated the whole intense energy of his powerful and massive intelligence upon the absorption and assimilation of this intellectual light until it became part of his own personality, and issued from him fresh and strong, saturated with his own vigorous nature. This was a marked characteristic of all his utterances. The original and native force of his own [14/15] individuality were stamped upon every expression. If a definition which has been given of originality is true, that it is the rethinking of old thought, then Dr. Harwood was one of the most original of men. No knowledge, no truth was to him real or genuine, until he had, through deep and sustained reflection upon it, made it his own.

He had, in addition to his power of long-continued application in the investigation of any of the great subjects in which he was interested, another and more peculiar gift, one with which we are more familiar in the past than in the present: that is the very unique habit of meditation. Men now, in this busy world, think they must snatch their morsel of truth and rush into the street about their work with their food hastily eaten and entirely undigested. But with this man, knowledge and life were so closely related, and life was so real and solemn, that he felt himself compelled to meditate deeply upon all that his large mind had gathered in. Again and again he would spend hours in deep and concentrated reflection, and the mental force necessary for such sustained effort cannot be realized until one makes the attempt, and finds how unwilling the mind is to bear the strain. Yet year after year this process went on, and year after year he was driven forward by his absorbing passion for knowledge. The whole wide range of European history and European thought drew him on to a completer knowledge and a completer culture. Yet a mere knowledge of facts did not suffice him, nor even a recognition of the principles and laws at work behind historical phenomena. He wished to find some expression, some phrase, some definition, some statement which should accurately and perfectly define the subject with which he was dealing, [15/16] whether it be an historical movement or a theological or philosophical principle. It was then the wide range of his knowledge and the grasp of his mind became manifest. Gathering together all his facts, he sought for some broad and deep generalization which would bind them together, and reveal their inner meaning. With a tenacity which could not be weakened or shaken he clung to this purpose, and at last by sheer force of intense thought worked out the statement which it might have taken him weeks to reach. Until this was done he was restless and absorbed. To every one he thought would care, the matter upon which he was brooding would be stated, and it was easy to see that the dissatisfied mind was groping and seeking and would not be refused. If after long effort he did not reach his end, he would begin again, and see if he had neglected any important facts, and at last, when he did reach his finished conclusion, there was a light in the face and a flash in the eye which showed the long search had been rewarded. Had he studied law he would probably have been a great jurist, upon whose philosophical opinions great issues would have hung. For these efforts of his were not mere academic ventures, but the result of the profound conviction that life is a painful and perplexing problem which no man can too thoroughly know. So there was about him always a gravity born at first of deep thought, and later the added vision of unseen things and the weight of many sorrows. He had a keen sense of humor, but no one ever heard him indulge in frivolous or foolish speech.

His general culture was the widest which it has ever been my privilege to know. Not only the literature of the past, but the great classics of the English, French and [16/17] German literatures had been closely and appreciatively studied. His literary taste was of the purest, and his knowledge intimate and discriminating. His critical instincts and faculty were so highly developed that, almost with the accuracy of a great scientist, he could trace the genesis of some literary production back to the well-springs of thought which lay behind it. One illustration will be sufficient. Some years since an English lady published a sceptical religious novel, which excited widespread comment and aroused much attention. After reading it he remarked to a friend: "She drew her inspiration from the introduction to Strauss's Life of Jesus." Some weeks later a critic who had reviewed the book in one of our leading periodicals, received a letter from the writer of the novel, in which she said she had based her book upon the principles of criticism laid down in the introduction of Strauss's Life of Jesus.

Whatever he read, he did so with his whole mind. If the book was not worth such attention, he did not think it was worth reading, and if there was anything of value in the book he had the heart of it in some thought or fact which he had sifted out, and which the average reader would quite overlook. He was always learning, and had at times an oppressive sense of his own shortcomings. One day he sat with his Shakespeare in his hand, and said rather sadly, "Ah! if I could only live a few years longer and read my Shakespeare I might know something."

These strong impressions first formed of his intellectual power were deepened as the years went by, and in addition to them some new thoughts were roused by the sense of the great moral qualities which lay behind. One quality not exactly moral, but rather a psychological [17/18] peculiarity, was his solitariness. In some respects he stood alone.

"His soul was like a star and dwelt apart."

A profound and impenetrable reserve hid the depths of his nature from every eye save that of God. Probably no one ever felt that they knew the interior life of the man even in that partial and incomplete way in which we know each other. This reticence was part of his nature, but undoubtedly the life-long habits of the scholar deepened and strengthened it. In some respects he was the loneliest man I ever knew. It was not that he was cold or indifferent, for on the contrary he was a most loyal and affectionate friend, but he did not and could not tell out that which concerned the secrets of his soul to any save God alone. His attitude towards the greatest subjects always had a certain impersonal character, such as made you feel it was simply an instinct he was following, and not a habit acquired through experience or inspired by caution. This element of his nature perhaps helped to bring out more clearly the strong moral characteristics of the man. Everything that was low, everything that was vulgar, was excluded not only from his conversation but from his mind. There was a haughty moral purity about the man that scorned even to think of unseemly things. One does not envy the experience of the man that broached such subjects to him. The absolute aloofness of his mind from everything of this nature suggested at first ignorance, but his wide knowledge made that impossible, and so the puzzled mind was gradually led to a recognition of the unique purity of his character. This feature of his life was not so noticeable [18/19] or perhaps at first so impressive as others, but when it was once grasped it gave a singular distinction to one's thought of him. To me it became one of the most striking elements of his nature.

Undoubtedly that, however, which was the most obvious to the student of his moral nature was the strength and tenacity of his will. Nothing ever less suggested obstinacy than his quiet manner and courteous attention, yet there were times when one felt that they had struck the granite underneath this cultivated urbanity, and a sense of utter hopelessness came over one. When under pressure that massive mouth settled into its iron lines, and the cool light came into the blue-gray eyes, one was conscious of immense power latent there, and all opposition seemed in vain in the presence of this silent strength. And this will of his never relaxed. He had chosen his life, and no man could turn him from it. He was not indifferent, far from it, to praise or popularity, yet the cold contempt and bitter scorn with which he looked upon the praise-seeking clergy was not unmixed with knowledge. When once asked what he considered the greatest temptation of the Christian ministry, he replied: "Love of popularity." He knew what the temptation was, and he took it by the throat and choked the life out of it. It is a strong man, a very strong man, who can do such a thing as this.

No life is so laborious, no life is so lonely, as that of the scholar, yet for sixty years and more he held to the course he had chosen as a boy, unchanged by praise or blame. It was said of one of the most brilliant English historians, who died in his prime, that he had died learning. Much better might it be said of this one who has [19/20] gone from us. In the very week in which he passed away, he welcomed most eagerly a new book, which carried him back to the dreams of his boyhood, to the scenes of his young manhood, to the land where mighty civilizations fought and fell beside the far Ionian Sea. All through those eighty years, one inflexible and unchanging purpose runs:

"To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought."

As one knew him better, the quiet and unconscious courage of the man grew upon one. The only questions in his mind seemed to be; is it true? is it right? These answered, he would face the world without fear.

"Lay on my coffin a sword," cried the poet Heine, "for I, too, was a brave soldier in the war of Freedom for Mankind." We, too, can lay a sword upon the coffin of this quiet scholar, for no braver soldier than he ever fought for the freedom of mankind. He strove to break the fetters of ignorance; to free men from the slavery of the letter, of tradition, of the past; to break the bondage of the vulgar, the commonplace, and the mean; to cast away the cords of iniquity and sin. Liberty in all its noblest forms was one of the passions of his life. His imagination was fired by the long struggles of the past, by the great leaders in the higher life of the race, by those who fought for truth and suffered because they loved it.

Over the grave of John Knox it is written, "Here lies one who never feared the face of man." Can anyone remember the time when Edwin Harwood refused to speak because he was afraid, or kept silence lest men might attack him? There is no venom like that which [20/21] theological rancor secretes; and as the most poisonous serpents are the smallest, so the weakest and most timid men are the most malignant. So for many years a steady tide of detraction, suspicion and hostile criticism pressed hard against him, and he never wavered, never lost the lofty pride that made him scorn to answer, never ceased to be true to himself, never failed to be just and charitable in his judgments of others, and never lost the poise or patience with which he waited for the victory of truth as he saw it in the large. It has not come yet, it will not come in our day, but it will come some day, and when it does come he will rejoice in it. For more than fifty years he fought the battle of liberal theology, of free thought, and now as we lay him away we may mournfully write, "Ultimus Romanorum," the last of the Romans. He is the last of that little band who fought so splendidly for the broader and more generous and more Christian temper which should maintain within our communion the full liberty of the sons of God. He stood under that standard to the last, and looked with sorrowful eyes upon the decay of learning, the indifference to scholarship, and the neglect of some of those greatest things which make life lofty and make it true, which he thought he saw everywhere about him. Yet his courage never faltered, and he died as he had lived, saying that the day would come when all these better and nobler things would be again the very life of men, as they must be, if men are to do great things and live great lives.

The spiritual in man as the deepest and most sacred side of his nature is the most hidden, and only in the course of long years, or under the ripening culture of God's great education, does it come to its full value and [21/22] power. It is not fitting that one should dwell upon the long tragedy of that private life; upon those sorrows so heavy and so sacred which came to him. Again and again the blow fell until his six children, his entire family, were called away. The last one was taken but a short time since. Then the old father and mother clasped hands and walked alone toward the home that was waiting for them. Again the call came, and she who for more than fifty years had stood bravely by his side heard her Father's voice, and rose up and left him. This last blow, so shattering, so overwhelming, staggered him, and he reeled. Old, lonely, and broken-hearted, he sat there silently among the books he had loved so well, and which for so many years had been his constant companions. But He in whom he had trusted through all those fourscore years, came to him, lifted him up and bid him stand upon his feet, and be a man again. Then he gathered all his strength, and bent that iron will and that inflexible courage to this great task. His unfaltering faith, the eternal goodness of God, sustained him and he began to live again. About him there was a gentleness and strength, a sweet benignity and a consecrated tenderness, that made one feel God was very near to him. Those last days were very beautiful, like the sunset glow upon a lonely mountain. His mind was clear and active, his interests just as wide as ever, but a certain child-like simplicity of the inner life began to come clearer into view. His habit of late had been, as he lay in his bed at night, to repeat to himself some of the very many hymns, which he knew so well, so that, in case God called him in the night, as he said, he might go without the stain of an evil or selfish thought upon his soul.

[23] When the end came, it came as he would have wished it, without pain and with a clear and tranquil mind. As he had faced life, so he faced death, but with that strange calm with which the great and the good look out upon the great unknown. For three days he faced that awful door with a look of silent expectation in the clear eyes. The door opened, and in the twinkling of an eye he had passed within the veil. To those who knew him as he really was, his memory will ever live, sacred, imperishable, alone. His wise words and wide thought of life have braced some faltering souls that now will find life harder and sadder.

What he was to me, I could not put into words. The man of all men that ever I have known, who was to me all the best that one man can be to another. With the end of that great and gracious friendship the richest chapter in my life is closed.

My story is told. It only remains now to say farewell. Farewell, oh wisest, strongest, bravest man, God in His infinite goodness ever permitted me to call my friend, I bid you a long and sad farewell!

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