48 



worn out lie w.as. His last letter to Dr. Gray was the first expression 

 lie had made to any one of the bitter disappointment with which he 

 surrendered aH the responsibilities he had assumed, and the fine pros- 

 pects before him. His letter was full of devotion to the duties of the 

 college and to science, which even the nervous irritability and inex- 

 pressible agony of body could not make him forget. He gave an 

 intimation of this distress to his physician at that time, when he said 

 "you can have no idea what self-control I exercise." And indeed he 

 never for a moment forgot the claims of others. His delicacy of 

 organization found no indulgence with himself. He was always ready 

 to bear his part of care or toil, and never spared himself till, in the 

 very last weeks, when every sensation was a pain, he one day gently 

 requested that, unless it was necessary to consult him, he might not 

 hear of anything painful or even inconvenient. 



The college duties were only given up when assured by the authori- 

 ties that his inability to conduct them longer should make no change 

 in the furlough of Dr. Gray. This respite from labor, under good 

 medical treatment, brought a temporary change for the better. Hope 

 I'evived but only to be dashed to the ground. An unfortunate expo- 

 sure to cold caused indirectly a return of the hemorrhage, from 

 which he never rallied. The nervous symptoms from which he had 

 long suffered were intensified in proportion as he sank. Debility 

 brought accelerated motion of the heart, and loss of lung tissue 

 caused shortness of breath. Sleep never came now but after the use 

 of sedatives or hypnotics ; except on the last day, when he remarked 

 that he thought he could sleep. Pain then left him, and in the calm 

 immediately preceding his death he expressed a sense of great relief. 

 This was the final ray of light and hope that broke through the clouds 

 of his sunset; a fitful gleam, just one, to illumine the flight to higher 

 fields of study. Quietly and unexpectedly he had gone — befoi'e even 

 the watching friends wei'e conscious of a struggle. He died Novem- 

 ber the eleventh, 1808. 



The post-mortem examination revealed the unexpected fact that one 

 lung was entirely goue, and that disease had made sad inroads on the 

 other. Had any vicious habits been engrafted upon his life he must 

 have succumbed long before he did. The conditions of existence to 

 him were virtue and strict temperance in all things ; and he gave his 

 body the full benefit of a rigid morality. 



He was transparent in his goodness, genuine in his friendship, and 

 useful in his short day ! Should we not rather be grateful that he was 

 given at all thau repine that he was taken so soon? For one who 

 needed little chastening a score of years was a long confinement to 

 earth. What had his past given us reason to hope for had his life 

 been spared? llathor, what in the way of true nobility and good sci- 



