300 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



and I believe I have been present at about sixty. Per- 

 haps this may be my last, that rests with my Maker, 

 and I hope to be satisfied with the decision. It cannot be 

 long before my class will become extinct, and we shall pass 

 into the vast group of the stelligeri. Oh that we may be 

 among those that shine as the stars in the blessed world ! 



August 11, 1862, being the first Sabbath in my eighty- 

 fourth year, I acknowledge with deep and joyful gratitude 

 the prolongation of my life to this advanced period. I 

 have survived many dear friends, both my parents, my 

 brothers of the half-blood, four of my children, and 

 their blessed mother of precious memory, both her 

 parents, her surviving sister, Mrs. Wadsworth, and her 

 husband Daniel Wadsworth, and very many other highly 



valued friends In the first century of Yale 



College there are only twenty survivors, and five of them 

 of the class of 1796, my own class. It will not require 

 another decade of years to remove every individual of the 

 twenty survivors. They must all be octogenarians or more, 

 and some of them nonogenarians, and one is about one 

 hundred, he will be of that age September 9, 1862. It 

 would probably be a large allowance to give the twenty 

 an average of five years ; that addition to my own years 

 would carry me to eighty - eight, and my brother to his 

 ninetieth year. I endeavor to realize it as a settled con- 

 viction that my remaining time must be short, and may 

 be very short. My reliance is placed entirely upon my 

 blessed Saviour, and being without any claim to personal 

 merit in the view of my Judge, I commit my soul to the 

 lifeboat of Christ, and hope to reach the heavenly shore. 



In company with Rev. George Jones he went to 

 look at the iron-clad vessels which were in process 

 of construction in New York. 



