He stretched out one hand and
placed it upon the head of his son, who came hurriedly to his bedside,
crying out, in piteous accents,
"O, father, father," and stood sobbing beside him.
This was his only recognition of any one. But the struggle was soon
over, and the spirit had burst the barriers that held it to its clay
tenement and passed away to a brighter world.
His sun set at noon; but his memory has left a sweet fragrance behind
it, grateful to the surviving friends, who are called upon to follow
his pious example.
He was borne to the Cemetery, and buried in a spot, which he had
selected a few weeks before, in company with his aged mother, by a
long train of weeping friends, for he had been very dear to us, and
nature would have her tribute, and it filled our hearts with sadness,
when we realized that we should see that loved form on earth no more.
Yet we rejoiced that he had died in the glorious hope of a blessed
immortality, and that we could say, in the impressive language of
the text that was chosen for his funeral sermon, "Our friend Lazarus
sleepeth." Sweet be thy sleep, dear brother, during the night of
death; but the morning will come--the glorious morning of the
resurrection--and unlock the portals of the tomb, and the dead shall
come forth, the righteous clothed in eternal youth, shall never die,
the wicked sinking into the second death that has no end.
Sober autumn perfected his work of decay, and dreary winter spread his
snowy shroud over the barren globe, when the aged mother laid down
upon the bed of death.
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