In opening this course of lectures, devoted to Human Improvement, I
cannot forget that noble spirit, especially dear to many of you as
pastor, whom we had hoped to welcome at this time in restored health,
instead of mourning dead in a distant land. I knew him well, and never
came within his influence without confessing his many-sided powers,
his marvellous acquirements, his rare eloquence, his soul touched
to so many generous sympathies, and his heart beating warm for his
fellow-men. To the cause of Human Improvement, in every form, his life
was given. For this he labored; for this he died.
It was my fortune to see him during several days in Paris, some time
after he parted from you. He had recently arrived from the West Indies.
I feel that I cannot err in offering a slight reminiscence of that
meeting. I found him the same in purpose and aspiration as I had always
known him,--earnest, thoughtful, and intent on all that helped the good
of man, with the same completeness of intelligence, and the same large,
loving heart. We visited together ancient by-ways and historic scenes
of that wonderful metropolis, which no person was more forward to
appreciate and to enjoy; but, turning from these fascinating objects,
his conversation took the wings of the morning, and, traversing the
Atlantic, rested on our own country, on friends at home, on his
relations to his parishioners, on his unfinished labors, and on that
great cause of Liberty, which contains all other causes, as the greater
contains the less; for where Liberty is not, what is man, whether
slave or master? Observing him carefully, with the fellow-feeling of a
convalescent, I was glad and surprised to find in him so many signs of
health. At that time he was stronger than I was; but he has been taken,
and I am spared. Indeed, it was only in the husky whisper of his voice
that he seemed weak. I envied him much his active step and his power
to walk. But he had measured his forces, and calmly revealed to me his
doubt whether he should live to see home again. If this were permitted,
he did not expect to resume his old activities, but thought that in
some quiet retreat, away from paved streets, surrounded by books, he
might perhaps have strength to continue some of his labors, to bind up
some of his sheaves, and occasionally to speak with his pen. But it was
ordered otherwise. Not even this moderate anticipation was gratified.
The fatal disease had fastened too surely upon him, and was slowly
mastering all resistance. The devotion of friends, travel, change of
scene, the charms of Switzerland, the classic breath of Italy, all were
in vain. It was his wish that he should be buried where he fell, and
this child of New England, the well-ripened product of her peculiar
life, now sleeps in Tuscan earth, on the banks of the Arno, near the
sepulchres of Michel Angelo and Galileo. But I know not if even this
exalted association can make us content to renounce the pious privilege
of laying him in one of our own tombs, among the people that he loved
so well.
Pardon me for thus renewing your grief. But I felt that I could not
address you on any other subject until I had mingled my feelings with
yours, and our hearts had met in sympathy for our great bereavement.