MY BROTHER ALPHEUS.

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read a newspaper that forenoon, and yet was looking forward to the end at any moment. He suffered greatly that evening until 8 o'clock when he breathed his last, November 30, 1876.

The burial service was conducted by Bishop Paddock, Rev. W. P. Tucker, his nephew, and Rev. William Lawrence, his assistant, the Bishop making a tender and appropriate address. The church was crowded and the street outside; the city bell was tolled, and the schools were dismissed in token of respect for their superior for so many years. Nothing was wanting to testify the strong feeling which pervaded the community of Lawrence at the removal of " their first citizen," as the Congregational minister pronounced him, who for more than thirty years had labored there. His Christian character was beautiful and complete; a wise, tender, faithful pastor and friend, an earnest minister of the Gospel, a public spirited citizen, a brother beloved, he was a living Bible, or as a heathen convert said of a missionary, "There is no difference between him and the Book." He once said that his Christian hope rested more on what he believed to have been the general loyalty of his life thau on any peculiar and special experiences.

Alpheus Spring was born the same day and month, December 23, being fourteen years older than I. Our lives have been wonderfully alike, both ministers, both professors, and for the same length of time, sixty-five years, connected with our respective institutions. Each of us had a semi-centennial, when we received most gratifying expressions of affection from our students, and a purse containing the same amount, more than a thousand dollars. I suppose there never was a case like it. I recall but one academic career in this country that approaches his in duration, that of Dr. Nott, President of Union College for sixty-two years; and but one in England that exceeds it, that of Martin Joseph Routh, who was appointed Librarian of Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1781, and President in 1791, and who died in 1854, after a service of seventy-three years, dying in his one hundredth year.

"I had a brother once;
Peace to the memory of a man of worth!
A man of letters and of manners too;
Of manners sweet as virtue always wears,
When gay good-humor dresses her in smiles.
He graced a college, in which order yet
Was sacred; and was honored, loved and wept,
By more than one, themselves conspicuous there,"

With sunny and benignant presence, with transparent, consistent and lovely character, with no thought of self, he lived in and for the College, so that he became to its graduates "the soul" of Bowdoin and a visible embodiment of the College and what it stood for during the century.

He once told me that he had never been sick a day in his life. He was Acting President of Bowdoin, and presided at the commencement with unusual grace and power; then went off for a few days' rest, and after service at church walked on the seashore, where he was seen to fall. He was carried to the house, where, after a few minutes and a few parting words—“No pain ; "Going"--he breathed his last.

"It was a peculiar pleasure to the Alumni to return to Bowdoin at the annual commencement, there to find the venerable Professor of Greek, with his fresh countenance, his polished English, his courtesy, and his cultivated mind, unimpaired." He lies buried in the pine-girt cemetery near the College

He loved well will guard his slumbers night and day.

My sister Mary, wife of Jonathan Tucker, of Salem, was a devout Christian, a wise and loving mother, and her death, March 14, 1887, added one more to the family in Heaven.

My oldest sister, Sarah, on my mother's death, took charge of our family, and when we were grown she did the same for brother Alpheus' family for five years after the death of his wife. She had a great influence for good, and was said to be the cause of Mr. Merrick's conversion when ninety years of age. She was like a Sister of Charity, unselfish, devoted, wise, and firm in faith. She fell asleep in May, 1894.

A foretaste of the blessed reunion of Paradise was granted us when, in 1847, two years before my father's death, his seven surviving children gathered around him at the Holy Communion. The mother had long since gone to her rest, and the youngest son.

Of the five sons, four were ministers of the Gospel, and all the children were partakers of like precious faith. Such a meeting

ONE FAMILY IN HEAVEN.

345

has been rarely witnessed, and the thought that never again on earth would we all meet together brought nearer to our hearts Heaven, with its perfect union. We prayed together fervently; we sang

"Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love,"

and commended each other to a covenant-keeping God, praying that our children might be saved with us forever, and thanking God that we had such a father and mother.

I must here add a short sketch of my first cousin, Frederick A. Packard, of Philadelphia. Born in Marlboro, Massachusetts, September 26, 1794, he was prepared for college by my father, to whose influence he ascribed much of his success in life. He graduated with honors at Harvard College in 1814, his commencement oration was delivered in the Hebrew language; became editor of the Hampshire Federalist in 1819, and married Elizabeth Dwight Hooker in 1822, and practiced law in Springfield. When about twenty he united with the Congregational Church and was very earnest, especially in Sunday-school work. In 1828 he visited Philadelphia to attend a meeting of the American Sunday School Union and so impressed them that he was at once offered the position of editorial secretary. This he accepted and at the cost of flourishing worldly prospects for thirty-eight years he discharged its duties with signal ability and fidelity. Every book issued by that society for thirty-six years was by him prepared for and carried through the press, in number over two thousand, fifty of them being the product of his own fertile brain. Besides these he edited all the weekly and monthly products of the Union for thirty years. He was interested in all public affairs and twice declined the presidency of Girard College. His words were "I place this guilty hand upon the Lamb of God and say, 'The Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.'"' He died November, 1867. His son Lewis R. was Professor of Greek at Yale, dying in 1884 at the height of his fame and usefulness. Another son, Dr. John H. Packard, a famous surgeon and physician, still survives and at his house as at his father's I have spent many happy days. The five sons of Dr. Packard have achieved great success in Philadelphia, two as physicians and three as business men. A blessing I doubt not rests on them from their

346

ONE FAMILY IN HEAVEN.

pious ancestry. [A sad blow has fallen upon this family in the death from typhoid fever on November 1, 1902, All Saints' Day, of Dr. Frederick A Packard, a brilliant physician in the prime of his noble manhood and usefulness.-EDITOR.]

CHAPTER XXVIII.

LAST DAYS.

[In this chapter I give a brief account of my father's last days and some estimate of his life and character from the pen of others.-EDITOR.]

EVE

VER since the appearance of "the grip" some ten years ago, my father suffered from frequent attacks of it each year, but, thanks to his powerful constitution, rallied, though his end seemed sometimes near. In February, 1902, he was again attacked by it, got up again, went about the house, and on pleasant days sat out on the porch. Early in March he took to his bed, which he kept until his death, May 3, 1902, except on two occasions, when he was carried to the window, as he desired, to look upon the landscape he had loved so long and well. When he saw the green grass and the blossoming shrubbery he gave an exclamation of delight. He felt always very grateful that he was allowed to stay in the home so endeared to him by the long association of more than threescore years, whose grand old oaks were objects of affection to him. Speaking of this home, he once said, "How can I leave thee, paradise?"

He had for some time been trying to teach the young colored man who waited on him the great truths of salvation through simple hymns which the boy could remember. The morning before he died, when his pulse was but a thread, he said to him, "I the chief—" and stopped. The boy quickly responded, "I the chief of sinners am, but Jesus died for me." That same morning he said repeatedly to himself, "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!" He asked for the best hymn of all, and when "Just as I am" was repeated his face lighted up; another time he was heard to

say,

mime? silt to wid

albad sved, quimolioi sT "Thou o'erlook'st the guilty stain, erlook'st oes and washest out the crimson dye." 1601171198 bms,ral A A A A 2 Dunero A All that the loving care of a devoted daughter could do, or the skill of the physician could suggest, was done to relieve his weary of suffering hours, and God did wonderfully make all his bed