REV, AUGUSTUS SHEPARD 57 



vention, in its annual session at Fayetteville, 

 IT. C, which provided for him in its pro- 

 gram to preach one of the annual sermons, 

 on learning of the condition of the sufferer, was 

 touched into tenderness as we have never seen 

 them before ; resolutions were passed, to be sent 

 over the wires to his bedside; several fervent 

 prayers were offered in his behalf; and more 

 than an hour was spent by different members, 

 who had been associated with him for so many 

 years, in giving expression to his many virtues 

 and achievements. 



From time to time during these seven weeks 

 of illness, the home was crowded with people 

 from all ranks of life. All this could not stay 

 death from his claim. The appointed time had 

 come, and the debt must be paid. The hero of 

 so many battles must face the battle of battles, 

 the battle of the death struggle ; but with that 

 fortitude which never failed him in the fiercest 

 contests of the life he had lived so nobly, his 

 every word, and even his very countenance, gave 

 evidence; although upon the verge of the dark 

 "valley of the shadow of death/' he "feared no 

 evil," for God was with him. 



One of the last things he did was to give the 



