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occasion of pleasant family letters, which blended the musings of a pious heart with expressions of family love. From life's meridian, he thus writes: "This is my birthday, and brings with it many meditations as to the past and presaging thoughts of the future. Yes, to-day I am thirty-five; and have lived half the term allotted to man! I ask myself whether half life's work is done, and if so, cannot but feel how little will be the entire sum. Yet these years have teemed with incident, much that is tragic, more that is sweet and pleasant. The tide is bearing me on to the grave; nay, not so rather, I trust, toward heaven's shoreless ocean, where my little bark, so long tossed on life's heaving sea, may float forever on those joyous waters, where the breath of the Spirit shall swell its sails, and waft it from one scene of beatitude to another."

In 1859, when his mother's ill health had assumed a character so serious as to denote an issue not far removed, he thus writes to her, on the 15th of February, her birthday :

“I will not let this day go by without a word expressive of my constant love and daily memory of you. This, too, is the birthday of my little boy; and I blend together in my thoughts the two dearest objects of affection, my children and my mother.

"And now, my dear mother, I have only this word of greeting to utter, may God bless you and make this year full of happiness to you; and if it prove your last, or witness your birth into another sphere, may it yet be fraught with richest, choicest, most precious blessings, and be the happiest which your life, so varied in its sorrow and joy, has ever known."

In a letter to Eugene he thus refers to his mother's sickness, which confined her for several of the last months of her life to a sick-chamber: "I have just returned from Wayland, where I go every two or three days to visit our beloved mother. We found her still quite ill, but more comfortable, always thinking of you and her other dear ones, expecting death, whenever it may come, as a solemn but sweet reality, and as the herald to a brighter region."

In another letter to the same brother, he refers again to his mother: "Nothing could be more serene and radiant than her sick-chamber. The little children all seek it, as the one joyous, sunny spot in the whole house, where they are ever sure of wisdom and love, blended together in every word."

Thus did she draw near eternity. But Eugene reached it several weeks in advance, through the ocean portals, being lost overboard in his homeward voyage from New Orleans. In the mother's state of health it was thought best not to communicate an event to her which might add a mortal pang to her last hours and speed her malady. Finding no allusion made to Eugene, she asked Richard if he had gone before her, a remark which he evaded without answering. She saw in a moment the purpose to withhold from her sad and exciting tidings, and meekly suppressing the anxious questioning of a mother's heart, she never alluded to the subject again.

She continued cheerful, fully supported by her beloved Lord, and drawing near with bright and joyous anticipations the heavenly world which, with her Saviour, held so many of her heart's treasures. We

remember turning to hide a starting tear on an occasion when she spoke of her interest in the growing corn, hoping a plenteous harvest, without one sigh at the thought of the other harvest-home where she would then be gathered.

She entered sweetly on her glorious rest, on Sabbath morning, July 31st, 1859, the same day that terminated the Boston pastorate of her son Arthur.

In her sickness she watched with interest the growing attachment of her son for Miss Emma L. Reeves, a sister of Richard's wife. She expressed a wish that the marriage might not be deferred on account of her departure for the better land, and it took place accordingly in September of the same year.*

* We take the liberty to insert a few unpretending verses from the pen of the bride, in reference to her husband's children.

"Maidens wove white buds and leaflets,
Sweet and pure as they,

Feverfew and mignonette,

In a fair bouquet.

"But a loving hand brought dearer,

Fairer flowers than they,

And he placed them in my bosom,

Not to fade away.

"One a bud, but just revealing

Rich and roseate shades,

With a sweetness aromatic
As the Indian glades.

"And beside it is my Lily's

Alabaster cup,

Raising pure and perfumed petals

Gently, heavenward, up.

"Ye are welcome to my bosom,

Choice, immortal flowers!

Heavenly Gardener! help me train them
For thy fadeless bowers!"

The husband, in a private letter from the army, thus refers to his second marriage: "In my mother's sickchamber appeared a ministering angel. Her love for my mother, and devoted, tender care for long, weary months, her love of flowers and children, her poetical tastes, and, above all, her consistent piety, and the evident leading of Providence, caused me to form another attachment as true and tender as the first."

He now entered upon house-keeping in Watertown, which he continued till he was appointed army chaplain, a period of his life to which we shall now give exclusive attention.

the clergy. What is right for the one is for the other. And what the Christian clergyman may not do is alike unlawful for the Christian layman. Hence, not only have the clergy of America sent their petitions to Congress against the expansion of the national area furnishing new fields for slavery propagandism; but when the guns of Fort Sumter proclaimed the outbreaking of rebellion, they rushed to their country's standard, some in the pastoral robe, some sword in hand, captains or privates in the Church militant; no more hesitating for clerical punctilio, than they would to serve as posse comitatus of the angel Michael for the imprisonment of the Dragon.

The religious nature of American patriotism has given it a characteristic very puzzling to those who understand only the instinct of patriotism. The Bible has enlarged the Puritan's heart to the utmost borders of the world. Religion has transformed it from the contracted geographical sentiment to a cosmopolitan patriotism, whose country is the world, whose countrymen are all mankind. It cannot be restricted to the earthly precinct hallowed by the accident of birth, although it loves it because of its Gospel liberty, and as affording a stepping-stone to a better country, that is a heavenly. Therefore its declaration of rights does not say, we are free and equal; but all men are born free and equal, endowed with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It will not, therefore, be accessary to fetters imposed by another; nor can it be satisfied while there are any groaning under oppression, by whose bonds it is galled, as bound with them. True, while it insists upon washing

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