“My Brethren:--
“‘Dear beauteous death, the jewel of the just,’ has been laid upon the
breast of him who was and is in the Mystic Tie your brother and mine;
in every sense, the brother of all mankind.
“I have known him longer than the span of most men’s lives, and though
our paths have been apart for many years, I have ever been interested
to know that his industrious life has been kept unspotted from the
world, and that a heart large enough to include all who suffered or
were in want, a soul as white as heaven, have ever been the tenants of
his earthly habitation. In youth pure and amiable, in vigorous manhood
wise, and steady, and just, a serene and bright old age, lovely as a
Lapland night, has rounded out the earthly stay of Roger Brathwaite.
With him, high-erected thoughts, seated in the heart of courtesy, were
ever present. While even in boyhood his thoughts and studies were what
are called philosophical, he never sought to help knowledge overthrow
faith, weaken hope, or lessen charity. His youth was chaste and
uneventful. That future then dawning and which has become of the silent
past, was one of opportunities of many kinds for him, favored as he was
in health, in mind, in personal appearance, in social position, and in
this world’s goods. He could have had a career in which he would have
been known and honored of the multitude; but he preferred seclusion
and mental improvement to publicity and social advancement. Yet at no
time was his retirement so complete as to shut out from him a knowledge
of the world’s on-goings and of the sufferings and needs of his
fellow-men; never did his absorbing occupations close his ears to the
cry of the fatherless, or his purse against the appeal of the widowed
and forsaken. He craved knowledge as the poet, the artist, crave fame;
yet the rich storehouses of his mind were ever open to the inquiry of
any earnest seeker after truth.
“He loved mystery only that he might throw its portals open to the
light of day. ‘A gentleman well-bred and of good name,’ honor sat upon
him as the sun in the gray vault of heaven. He sought hidden knowledge
that he might use it for the good of men, and eventually make it free
as the wind. No covert enmity made him a target; he had no foe but
death, to whom he has rendered quittance. He died in full puissance of
mind and body. The rude imperious surge has carried him from us, but
his bright and shining memory remains. Could I but wish him no better
than he wished his fellow-men of all degree, I would breathe naught but
blessings and good will.
“What the exact import of his life-work, so suddenly, so unfortunately
swept away by the rude flood of fire, I know not; no one seems to know.
This only we do know, that he culled from every flower of fact some
virtuous sweets of knowledge which he laid up for mankind’s good use.
“He leaves no kindred, save that all men are alike his kith and kin. No
widow’s tears bedew, no orphan’s sighs bemoan, his honored grave; yet
there is no lack of tears or sighs, for strong men full of years must
mourn his death, whose life was all so full of tenderness and good.”
* * * * *
On a grassy sun-kissed slope overlooking the beautiful harbor of New
York, a massive granite cube bearing his name, and the dates of his
birth and death, covers the silent tomb of Roger Brathwaite. Peace to
his ashes no less than to his daring spirit, which laid bare the inmost
heart of the dead past, and would have wrested its every secret from
all time to come.