d asleep in Jesus, prepared, as we humbly trust, to hear
the greeting of "Well done, thou good and faithful servant!" Says a
friend, in a letter now lying before me, of August 27th: "On Saturday
afternoon, day before yesterday, your friend and my friend, Rev. John
Pierpont, called upon me, and we had a very interesting interview of
about an hour. I never saw him look better or appear happier. Although
eighty-one years of age the 6th of last April, he seemed to have the
elasticity of youth, and he was perfectly erect. I gave him what he
wanted very much,--a copy of his trial before an ecclesiastical council
in this city, several years ago. He gave me his photograph, and, taking
his gold pen, wrote underneath, in a beautiful hand, 'John Pierpont,
aged 81.' He said he was doing some work at Washington, which he hoped
to live long enough to complete.... When I published my last book, I
sent him a copy. He acknowledged the receipt of it in a letter of eight
or ten pages, which is now a treasure to me. His name on the photograph
was probably the last time he ever wrote it,"--another treasure, which
my friend would not now be likely to part with for any consideration.

My acquaintance with Mr. Pierpont began in the fall or winter of 1814,
just when the war had assumed such proportions, that men's hearts were
failing them for fear, and prodigies and portents were of daily
occurrence. New England too--finding herself defenceless and left to the
mercy of our foe--began to think, not of setting up for herself, not of
withdrawing from the copartnership, without the consent of the whole
sisterhood, but of coming together for conference and proposing to the
general government, not to become neutral after the fashion of Kentucky,
in our late misunderstanding, not of playing the part of umpire between
the belligerents, like that heroic embodiment of Southern chivalry, nor
of holding the balance of power, but, on being allowed her just
proportion of the public revenues, to undertake for herself, and agree
to give a good account of the enemy, if he should throw himself upon her
bulwarks, whether along the seaboard, or upon her great northern
frontier.

He had just escaped from Newburyport, after writing the "Portrait," a
severe and truthful picture of the times, which went far to give him a
national reputation--for the day; and opened a law office at 103 Court
Street, Boston, where he found nothing to do, and spent much of his time
in c