THOMAS HILL. 433 



than among the ministers and in the churches most widely separated 

 from him in creed and in modes of worship. 



For several years Dr. Hill had delivered in the spring or early 

 summer a course of lectures at Meadville, before the students in the 

 Divinity School. In May, 1891, though but partially recovered from 

 serious illness, he started on a journey in which he visited friends in 

 Ohio, and fulfilled his Meadville engagement on his return. He 

 arrived at Meadville greatly enfeebled, yet could not be dissuaded 

 from delivering his lectures, though the effort so far exhausted him 

 as to make his friends very apprehensive as to his homeward journey. 

 On the 7th of June he reached his daughter's house in Waltham, too 

 ill to so farther, and for several weeks was confined almost whollv to 

 his bed ; and there seemed little hope that he would ever leave his 

 room. Here he had the assiduous and skilful care of his son in law, 

 Alfred Worcester, M. D., and after a few weeks the worst symptoms 

 nearly disappeared, and he made arrangements for returning to Port- 

 land to take part in the ordination of his colleague. Rev. John 

 C. Perkins. But on the day before that appointed for his departure 

 a relapse occurred, and it became certain that the end was drawing 

 near. After several weeks of severe suffering he died, on the 21st of 

 November, 1891. During this long illness he manifested in full the 

 strength and the sweetness of his character. His courage, patience, 

 and resignation indicated at once perfect self-coutrol and the power of 

 a religious faith which seemed hardly less than a clear vision of things 

 divine and eternal. He was at the same time thoughtful of the com 

 fort of those around him, and of whatever concerned his friends and 

 his official charge in Portland ; and tliere were constantly going out 

 from his chamber by letter and message offices of love and kindness 

 for an extended circle of those whom he had made his own by ties 

 of benefit conferred. While fully prepared to die, he was during in- 

 tervals of relief hopeful of continued life, that he might avail him- 

 self of the diminished stress of professional duty for literary labors in 

 behalf of the interests of science and religion, in his mind joint and 

 inseparable. 



Dr. Hill was married in 1845 to Anne Foster Bellows, daughter of 

 Josiah and Mary (Sparhawk) Bellows, of Walpole, N. H., a woman 

 of rare beauty and loveliness of character, of superior ability and 

 culture, and unsurpassed in all that made her precious as a wife and 

 mother. She died in 1864, leaving for her husband the domestic cares 

 and responsibilities of which she had hardly let him feel the pressure. 

 In 1866 he married Lucy Elizabeth Shepard, daughter of Otis and 

 vol. xxvii. (n. s. xix.) 28 



