nd strivers towards what is highest, a mirror in
which some shadow of themselves and of their immeasurably complex
arena will profitably present itself. Here also is one encompassed and
struggling even as they now are. This man also had said to himself, not
in mere Catechism-words, but with all his instincts, and the question
thrilled in every nerve of him, and pulsed in every drop of his blood:
"What is the chief end of man? Behold, I too would live and work as
beseems a denizen of this Universe, a child of the Highest God. By what
means is a noble life still possible for me here? Ye Heavens and
thou Earth, oh, how?"--The history of this long-continued prayer and
endeavor, lasting in various figures for near forty years, may now and
for some time coming have something to say to men!

Nay, what of men or of the world? Here, visible to myself, for some
while, was a brilliant human presence, distinguishable, honorable
and lovable amid the dim common populations; among the million little
beautiful, once more a beautiful human soul: whom I, among others,
recognized and lovingly walked with, while the years and the hours were.
Sitting now by his tomb in thoughtful mood, the new times bring a
new duty for me. "Why write the Life of Sterling?" I imagine I had a
commission higher than the world's, the dictate of Nature herself, to do
what is now done. _Sic prosit_.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: _John Sterling's Essays and Tales, with Life_ by Archdeacon Hare.
Parker; London, 1848.]

[Footnote 2: _Commons Journals_, iv. 15 (l0th January, 1644-5); and again v. 307
&c., 498 (18th September, 1647-15th March, 1647-8).]

[Footnote 3: _Literary Chronicle_, New Series; London, Saturday, 21 June, 1828,
Art. II.]

[Footnote 4: "The Letters of Vetus from March 10th to May 10th, 1812" (second
edition, London, 1812): Ditto, "Part III., with a Preface and Notes"
(ibid. 1814).]

[Footnote 5: Here, in a Note, is the tragic little Register, with what
indications for us may lie in it:--

(l.) Robert Sterling died, 4th June, 1815, at Queen Square, in
his fourth year (John being now nine).
(2.) Elizabeth died, 12th March, 1818, at Blackfriars Road, in
her second year.
(3.) Edward, 30th March, 1818 (same place, same month and year),
in his ninth.
(4.) Hester, 21st July, 1818 (three months later), at Blackheath,
in her eleventh.
(5.) Catherine Hester Elizabeth, 16th J