142 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



The remarkable successes of this long life have been largely clue — shall 

 we not say? — to qualities of heart. This large assembly to-day, repre- 

 senting so many of the departments of his beneficent activity, will, as in- 

 dividuals, remember the man as a friend. He lived in his friends, with 

 his friends he worked for great objects ; for friendship's sake, nothing but 

 honor was too dear to be withheld! He "loved the praise of men" — we 

 all knew that — but it did not lower him in our thoughts, for he sought the 

 approbation of the best by no sinuous processes, surrendering nothing, 

 losing nothing. His heart was an open fire, around which men gathered 

 instinctively. We may well question whether there has ever lived in this 

 State a man who has enjoj'ed more friendships and more worthy ones. 

 Gather the foremost men of the whole region for fifty years past in the 

 walks of trade, of art, science, politics, jurisprudence and the so-called 

 learned professions, and how few among them were not personal friends 

 of our departed brother — a brother indeed to them all ! 



They have sought his counsels, received his encouragement, and the best 

 men were his best friends ! He seemed to say to all who were worthy of 

 his confidence, ''If thy heart is as my heart, then give me thine hand!" 



His domestic life, extending over a period of more than threescore 

 years, has been singularly happy, although its very happiness has opened 

 the door to the sorrows inseparable from the mortal lot. He has survived 

 his three wives and nine of his fourteen children. Yonder cemetery, to 

 which we are about to wend our way, contains what he used to call his 

 "garden of graves." He has said during his past year in terms of reverie, 

 "I shall be with wife soon." Old age has its pleasures, but the sadness 

 of frequent partings is mingled with them, and these impressed them- 

 selves deeply upon his heart. He lived to see generations of the good and 

 noble with whom he had been intimate pass beyond his touch and sight ; 

 and as I have heard him at times speak of this and that one, to whom his 

 soul had been grappled with hooks of steel, who had laid down to sleep 

 first, I have recalled the lines of the poet Vaughan, as expressive of his 

 feelings about the host of the departed : 



"They are all gone into the world of light, 



I alone sit lingering here ! 

 Their very memory is fair and bright, 



And my sad thoughts doth clear, 

 It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast, 



Tvike stars above some gloomy grove, 

 Or those faint beams in which the hill is dressed, 



After the sun's remove." 



In the narrower circle all these gracious and winning traits liad full 

 play. He loved his neighbors and, in turn, was loved by them. For fifty- 

 four years he was a member of this parish, and for fifty, at least, there 

 were few Sundays that did not see him in the fomily pew a reverent list- 

 ener and worshipper. He was a most generous supporter of the Gospel 

 and promoted all the good works to which the church lent her hand. To 



