the distance is; not indeed as a mourner, for, in view of his
ripe old age, and singularly beneficent life, there is no cause
for sorrow, but to express the estimation in which I held him,
as one of the best men who ever walked the earth, and one of the
most beloved among my numerous friends and co-workers in the
cause of an oppressed and down-trodden race, now happily
rejoicing in their heavenly-wrought deliverance. For to no one
was the language of Job more strictly applicable than to
himself:--"When the ear heard me, then it blessed me, and when
the eye saw me, it gave witness to me; because I delivered the
poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to
help him. The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon
me; and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy. I put on
righteousness, and it clothed me; my judgment was as a robe and
a diadem. I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame. I
was a father to the poor; and the cause which I knew not I
searched out. And I brake the jaws of the wicked, and plucked
the spoil out of his teeth." This is an exact portraiture of
your father, a most comprehensive delineation of his character
as a philanthropist and reformer. It was his meat and drink.

"The poor to feed, the lost to seek,
To proffer life to death,
Hope to the erring, to the weak
The strength of his own faith.

"To plead the captive's right; remove
The sting of hate from law;
And soften in the fire of love
The hardened steel of war.

"He walked the dark world in the mild,
Still guidance of the light;
In tearful tenderness a child,
A strong man in the right."

Did there ever live one who had less of that "fear of man which
bringeth a snare," than himself? Or who combined more moral
courage with exceeding tenderness of spirit? Or who adhered more
heroically to his convictions of duty in the face of deadly
peril and certain suffering? Or who gave himself more
unreservedly, or with greater disinterestedness, to the service
of bleeding humanity? Or who took more joyfully the spoiling of
his goods as the penalty of his sympathy for the hunted
fugitive? Or who more untiringly kept pace with all the
progressive movements of the age, as though in the very
freshness of adult lif