Other relatives and friends had to regret that he could not have tarried some years longer in his delightful social relations and in his beneficent work. For it was particularly noticeable that none, not even the youngest, seemed to think of him as of an old man. We thought of him, rather, as just matured for the fullest usefulness in every sphere of activity, and particularly as an instructor of youth, and the administrator of the College. Several added years might each have witnessed naturally further outreach of his busy plans, greater completeness in their execution. But our regrets were balanced by the recollection of what he had been spared to accomplish, and by the sight of present fruits of his labors. The grand institution under whose roof his body lay was bound to preserve his memory and to perpetuate his influence. We found, as many others were sure to do, in its broad lawns and far-winding paths constant reminders of him who had watched with so much interest their design and completion. What was more, numerous messages of loving sympathy and grateful remembrance were already coming from near and far, from former colleagues in his labors, from reverent and affectionate pupils, and from heart-smitten friends, all testifying of the sorrowful impression produced by the news which had flown over the land. But comforting above all this was the evidence to our hearts that his death was but the coming again of the Saviour to take him to Himself. It seemed very easy there where he had been most intimately known, both in his domestic and his more public relations, to think of him as only removed to another of our Father's "many mansions" and engaged in its higher service. He had shown us how to be prepared for our own end. We could now more willingly relinquish earthly attractions and cherished work here below, to be inseparably united, in the Saviour's presence, with him and all the kindred souls who shall be gathered before His throne.

Thus it was, as if under the pure and elevating influence of his spiritual presence, that we communed together during those two or three days, until the funeral rites.

As it was now vacation-time, the students of the College and most of the instructors were absent, and it was advised that appropriate public services commemorative of the public man should be postponed to a more convenient time. Meanwhile the

funeral meeting of friends was quietly held on Friday afternoon, in the chapel where he had so often led the devotions of the great College family and spoken to them the words of truth and soberness concerning life, its duties, and the life eternal. His friend for more than forty years, Rev. Dr. Edward Lathrop, President of the Board of Trustees of Vassar College, in his discourse gave voice to the profound affection and esteem which the departed one had inspired. A last hymn was sung, and the last look silently taken of the face of the dead. The burial took place the next day. Several of the Trustees of the College, delegated for this purpose, accompanied the family and other friends on their sad errand down the Hudson, on the steamboat "Mary Powell." The most respectful sympathy was expressed by the very look of all, even of the people connected with the boat, to whom the face and form now still in death had become familiar. Many of the company knew and could not fail to remember now the appreciative enjoyment with which he had so often viewed the charming scenery through which we glided toward our destination. We might have felt that truly "The hills,

Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,"

with all the poet's grand and beautiful array of the phenomena of nature,

"Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man ;"

but that sentiment could not suit with the funeral of one so cheerful in his views of life, and who, having faithfully served God and his generation, had simply risen to a more beautiful and blessed state. To him the grandeur and glory of external nature was, rather, the adornment of man's earthly dwelling-place and hint of the more entrancing beauty of the world to come.

Peculiarly suggestive of solemn reflection was the passage of our burial-train through the crowd and bustle of the two cities. How striking the contrast between that surging activity of the scene on which his life began and the pulseless quiet in which he lay at the end of life! Would any one of the busy or the careless throng heed the salutary lesson? Slowly we threaded our way across New York-over the East River-through the

streets of Brooklyn, still more nearly associated with the early training and subsequent labors of our departed friend. We passed close in front of certain doors to which he had been well known and ever welcome. It would have seemed the most natural thing in the world if he had been seen that moment ascending the steps. It was still hard to be persuaded that he would never tread them again, that these places which had known him so well through nearly a lifetime would never know him more.

Other friends were awaiting us in the sacred inclosure at "Wintergreen Hill" in Greenwood Cemetery. There our precious charge was fondly laid, among the graves of his father and mother and children who had gone before him, and of many other relatives and friends. Years and generations will pass, and still the hearts of some visitors to that Paradise of Tombs will be tenderly moved as they read on a plain granite cross the name of JOHN HOWARD RAYMOND.

G. R. B.

IN

N this brief chapter have been gathered a few of many healing and helpful words spoken or written about the departed friend. And, first, some portions of the remarks of the Rev. Dr. Edward Lathrop, at the private funeral services held in the College:

It is on occasions like this that the heart speaks. It is not the time for elaborate and studied discourse-not even for such arrangement of first thoughts as might, in cooler moments, seem to be most appropriate and just. We are here to bury our friend, and in the freshness of our grief we can think only of our loss, and remember only how much we loved him. I know I will be pardoned if in a single moment I give utterance to a few words which are personal, in part, to myself. I have been so long, and at times so intimately, associated with this beloved and honored brother (I do not now allude to official association), I have known him so familiarly in the more private walks of life -in the intimacies, first, of college life (we were students together in those early days), in the family, and in various other relations—that I had come to esteem and love him as one of the most excellent and true-hearted and noble of all whose friendship it has been my privilege to enjoy; and now he has passed from my earthly vision, and as these precious remains lie before me I do not think of him as Dr. Raymond, the accomplished scholar, the learned professor, the distinguished President of Vassar College, but rather and simply as John H. Raymond, the guileless man—the genial, the companionable, the trusted friend. The man is more than the scholar; the qualities of the heart are of greater worth than the badges of office. And yet I must not forget that interests of more than a private nature are

affected by the event which summoned us here to-day, and that I am, in some sense, the representative of those wider interests. Doubtless the greatest work of Dr. Raymond's life, and that impress of his character and teachings which will be the most permanent and far-reaching, are the work which he performed in his connection with this College, and the impress which he left upon the minds and hearts of those who have annually gone forth from these halls to do the honest womanly work for which his and other associated hands had trained them. He was fitted, in a pre-eminent sense, for the position which he occupied. In his physical structure and peculiarities, if I may so speak, in his temperament, and in his mental characteristics, he was qualified, as few are, to be the instructor, the monitor and guide of the young, especially of young women. Gentle, refined, winning, his very presence was an elevating inspiration, and in his Christian manliness, and yet freedom from everything like religious affectation and cant, the moral influence of his life, as he moved unostentatiously and cheerfully among his numerous college family, was most benign and salutary. In other respects, moreover, he possessed the fitness to which I have referred, in an unusual degree. His whole previous intellectual training had qualified him for the discharge of the complex and difficult duties of the office to which he gave the strength of his later and best days..

The work which he undertook, and which he sedulously prosecuted to the end of his life, was, at the outset, environed with difficulties which those only can fully estimate who were his co-laborers in reducing to something like order and system what seemed to be wholly confused and chaotic. A new experiment was to be tried. An enterprise, such as the world had not before known was to be inaugurated. An experience in unusual and untried methods was to be acquired, and, in a word, a task was to be undertaken which might well test the patience, if indeed it should not exhaust the energy, of the stoutest and bravest. To this task our friend earnestly set himself. Calmly, unpretentiously, cautiously he felt his way, until, one after another, the problems were solved, the rubbish taken away, and the edifice in its beauty, as we now see it, stood revealed. In doing his work as judgment and conscience dictated, it is need