Dunglison.] "^g [October. 



on. Such are the lectures I have read, one or more in a season, 

 here, in New York, New Haven, &c., &c." 



Early in 1859 Dr. Bethune experienced the first serious attack of 

 the disease which, in the end, was fatal to him. He was seized in 

 the night with apoplectic stupor, from which he did not recover 

 until the afternoon, when he awoke to full consciousness, his first 

 playful question, on witnessing a regular and a homceopathic prac- 

 titioner in the room, being, " Whether the north and the south pole 

 had come together?" Luckily, there was no resulting paralysis. 

 Still, his apprehensions of a recurrence, the danger of which was 

 not concealed from him, whilst appropriate preventive measures were 

 inculcated, induced him to abandon all his important and engrossing 

 occupations, and to seek change and repose in a clime which had 

 ever been his favorite, enriched as it is by those classic archaieal 

 associations, in which his cultivated mind, from his earliest manhood, 

 had delighted to revel. Early in March he sailed with iMrs. Bethune 

 in a bark for Naples, where, after a tedious but ordinary voyage, 

 they arrived in safety and improved health. He did not succeed, 

 however, in obtaining that quiet which he sought for. The per- 

 petual political agitations in that city, and elsewhere in Italy, were, 

 indeed, the source of much anxiety to him and to others, and tended 

 to neutralize the good effects which might otherwise have accrued to 

 him. 



He returned to New York in the month of September, when his 

 report to the writer was, that they had had a pleasant voyage over, 

 and it had done them both much good ; that he found no incon- 

 venience except an undue excitability of nerves, which fault was be- 

 coming less and less. His attention had been directed to a church 

 at Newburg, on the Hudson, and he had, moreover, immediately 

 on his return, encouraging ofters in New York, but had some de- 

 sire to winter at the South. 



During Dr. Bethune's absence in Europe, the ofiice of Provost of 

 the University of Pennsylvania had become vacant; and as he had 

 resigned his pastoral ofiice in Brooklyn, and was regarded by promi- 

 nent members of the Board of Trustees as signally qualified for the 

 office, he was written to on the subject by the writer of this notice; 

 but before the letter reached Liverpool he had set sail for the United 

 States. The writer hastened to New York to confer with Dr. Be- 

 thune on his arrival ; and on his return wrote to the gentlemen who 

 had nominated him to the Board of Trustees, expressing, in the 



