to other calls of duty, at one time to write a history of the
Apostolic Age, and at another the Life of Christ, but always returning to
his General History, as the one great task appointed him of God to do. As
I parted with him in the spring of 1848, my heart drawn out toward him
with an admiring tenderness and reverence, such as I had never experienced
toward any other living scholar, I could not forbear assuring him, that
many prayers would go up for him in America as well as in Europe, that he
might be spared to complete his work. "I hope it," he replied, "but that
must be as God wills." But this wish of his heart was denied him. He died
in Berlin on Sunday, July 14th, 1850, in the midst of his unfinished
labors. He had published what brings us down to the year 1294, and was
then at work upon the centuries which lie between that and the
Reformation. The posthumous volume, edited by Schneider, still falls
short, by nearly a hundred years, of that important epoch. Had he been
spared to proceed thus far, we had been the better reconciled to his
dying; although his countrymen were anxious to have him turn his peculiar
powers upon the Reformation itself, and the world-wide movements which
have grown out of it. But this was not to be. He died, leaving no one to
take his mantle; died, too, somewhat prematurely, for he was only
sixty-one years old.

Of his personal appearance, which was altogether unique, descriptions have
frequently been given. He was small of stature, his height not exceeding
five feet and four or five inches. He had studied so hard, exercised so
little, eaten so sparingly and suffered so much from imperfect health,
that his muscles seemed entirely relaxed and flabby. His hand, when he
gave it in salutation or in parting, was like that of a sick child. But
his hair remained as black as a raven. His brows were shaggy and
overhanging, and his black eyes, when ever and anon the drooping lids were
lifted away from them, shot forth a very deep and searching light. As one
sat over against him, watching his words, he might easily imagine himself
gazing through those glowing orbs back into the ages. His study, up two
flights of stairs, overlooking one of the public squares of the city, was
a place to be remembered. Its furniture was a plain round table, a
standing-desk, an old sofa and two or three chairs. High up on the walls
between the book-shelves and the ceiling, nearly all round the room, hung
engraved portr