Finish of artificial training

In all the vicissitudes of a missionary life, all his social relations, in his intercourse with his family at home and his friends around, he was always the same confiding, contented, humble, happy Christian man. In society, native or foreign, high or low, he moved with the same ease, not from any finish of artificial training in his youth, but from the native soundness, simplicity, modesty, and benevolence of his heart and mind, pervaded by the spirituality of his inner life, and guided by a peculiar soundness of judgment as to what was fitting at the place and in the society he was in.

This remark reminds me of very numerous instances in our missionary deliberations, often on difficult, responsible, and complicated subjects, when he would put the question and sug-gest the right measure, often with such clearness as to secure at once the concurrence of the whole station or mission; and he did so, not as the result of any profound or acute reasoning on the subject, but simply as the verdict of a judgment thoroughly clear and sound.

Measures to be adopted

I could mention cases when in later days, in my judgment, the mission had reason to deplore their dissent from him in the measures to be adopted. But in these cases (they were not frequent) he invariably submitted to the majority, and did it unhesitatingly and honestly.

At last, the end of a well-spent missionary life drew near, and, as his health and strength were manifestly failing fast, he turned his face toward the land of his fathers, but still more to-ward “ the land of pure delight, where saints immortal reign.” Not Boston, not New York, not Philadelphia, but the New Jerusalem, was the city he sought, and now has found.