24 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 
generous purpose. His days were numbered. He re- 
turned to his home in August; on the 29th of the following 
November, preached his last sermon in Westminster Abbey ; 
and in January, 1875, was laid to his rest; leaving the 
record of an eminently useful life, whose influence will be 
felt through the ages to come in the works of genius he has 
left behind. 
It has been said that devotion to the memory of a 
mother’s love, is akin to the reverential devotion to Deity 
itself. And such was the devotion of Henry Shaw to the 
mother who bore him. Well do I remember the kind invi- 
tation I received more than 30 years ago, to join him with - 
a party of friends at a dinner in commemorating his mother’s 
81st birthday. Reticent as he naturally was, there were 
only slight allusions in passing words, to the occasion of 
the gathering, but every member of the company knew and 
felt in sympathy with what was passing in the mind and 
heart of their: host. A still more touchin g instance of this 
devotion, is the incident which occurred on the day of his 
death. A few hours only before he bade a long adieu to 
the scenes of earth, when his mind was clear and his 
memory undimmed, he asked his faithful attendant, that 
she would bring his mother’s prayer book, which he had 
cherished for years as a priceless treasure, and which was 
lying close at hand, and read to him the Psalter for the 
day. 
His biographer, who has written in such choice English, 
without exaggeration, and in honest truth, the simple story 
of his life, referring to his mother, remarks as it were 
incidentally, ‘*whom he most resembles in disposition.”’ 
And again, ‘* His naturally high temper’’ (which, by the 
way, his faithful attendant of nearly twenty-five years 
assured me she never saw exhibited ) — «* his naturally high 
temper was under such complete control that few ever 
suspected its existence.’’ ‘* In twenty-three years ”’ (says 
Mr. Gurney, head gardener), ‘I never heard him speak 
a harsh or irritable word, no matter what went wrong; 
