for him; and with his huge over-shoes, which, when he put them on so deliberately, would always bring to mind what the Apostle said, about having the “feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace." As he set out upon his ministry of mercy you might think him very slow, and doubt if he would find his way, and wonder when he would get back, or if he ever would. But, ere he slept, he would have threaded every darkest and most doleful lane, in the most destitute quarter of the city, dived into cellars, and climbed garrets, comforted a lonely widow, prayed by a dying sailor, administered the Holy Communion to an old bed-ridden woman, carried some bread to a family of half-starved children, engaged a mother to be sure and send her youngest daughter to an infant school, and "made a sunshine," in the shadiest places of human suffering and sorrow. And, when all this was done, if he had time for it, he would charm the most refined and intellectual with his delightful conversation and his pure and lambent playfulness. With a manner that seemed quite too quiet, there was an undercurrent of ceaseless, irrepressible activity; and brightest thoughts, in happiest words, were ever oozing out, like fragrant gums, from some East Indian tree, as soft, as sweet, as balmy, as balsamic. "He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one." I may add, as justly; "exceeding wise, fairspoken, and persuading." He had an intuition for good books, and the best parts of them; as he had also for good men.* With

*One of the keenest knowers I have ever met, observed of him, that his knowledge of men was most remarkable. "It was hard to get his judgment," he remarked; but when you had it, it was a good one. He was a staff that you might lean on, sure that it would neither bend nor break.”

all he did, and with the little that he seemed to do— the very reverse of Chaucer's Sergeant, who "seemed besier than he was;" he was at home in all good English learning with perfect mastery among the poets. His classical attainments were much beyond the average. He was a well read divine; and, beyond any man I knew, was "mighty in the Scriptures" and skilful in his application of them. His sermons were entirely practical. The object of his preaching was apparent always: to make men better. He sunk himself entirely in his theme:-CHRIST JESUS, AND HIM CRUCIFIED. He had no manner. Yet the perfect conviction which he carried with him from the first, that he was really in earnest, made him attractive to all sorts of people, high and low, rich and poor, wise and simple, ignorant and learned, and made him profitable to all. And, whatever his discourse might be, in matter or in manner, there was the cogent application always, of a holy and consistent life. His habits were simple, almost to severity. "Having food and raiment," he was "therewith content." What remained, after necessities were met, was so much for the poor. He was a Churchman of the noblest pattern. A Churchman of the Bible, and of the Prayer Book. A Churchman, with Andrews, and Taylor, and Wilson. If he was least tolerant of any form of error, it was that of PAPAL ROME. He would have burned, if need had been, with Latimer and Ridley. He made no compromise with novelties, but always said "the old is better." There was no place for the fantastic in his churchmanship; it was taken up, too much, with daily work, and

daily prayer, and daily caring for the poor. There was no antagonism between his poetry and practice. His poetry was practical. It was the wayflower of his daily life; its violet, its cowslip, or its pansy. It sprang up where he walked. You could not get a letter from him, though made up of the details of business or the household trifles of his hearth, that some sweet thought, (as natural as it was beautiful,) would not bubble up above the surface with prismatic hues that marked it his. His heart was wholly in the priesthood. He loved to pray. He loved to minister the Sacrament. He loved to preach. He loved to catechize the children. And, when he lifted up his manly voice in the old hymns and anthems of the Church, it seemed as if a strain of the eternal worship had strayed down from heaven. He was so modest and retiring that few knew him well. But there is no one that knew him well, that will not say, with me, "we shall not look upon his like again.” If he excelled in any one relation, after his service to Christ's poor, it was in all the acts and offices of friendship. He was a perfect friend. So delicate, so thoughtful, so candid, so loving, so constant. "More than my brother," for a quarter of a century, I dare not trust myself to speak of what he was to me; of what I know I was to him. I never heard words spoken, with sincerer pleasure, than when, the other

*How fond he was of flowers! Beautiful tributes of this kind, went with him into the grave. He was a fond lover of music, too. He not only took a leading part in the music of the Church, but employed his exquisite taste in its selection. So that its whole character was singularly tender, touching, and impressive.

day, his old heroic father-who might well declare, with aged Ormond, that "he would not exchange his dead son, for any living son, in Christendom"-said to the coachman who had driven us out to weep together by his grave,*"This is the Bishop of New Jersey; the best friend that my son ever had, on earth." I would not covet for my child a richer earthly treasure, or a higher human praise, than to be William Croswell's best and dearest friend.

And, "Lycidas is dead; dead, ere his prime!" In the midst of his years and of his usefulness. When a keener enjoyment of his social and domestic comforts had been awakened in him. When the work, which he loved beyond his life, was prosperous to his heart's content. When he was looking out on life, after some years of trial and discouragement, not without physical suffering, with a more cheerful aspect. When the just estimate of his invaluable services had placed his family with him in a convenient mansion, with becoming fixtures; so that he said to one, in his own pleasant way, "my feet are set in a large room." When he had put in order his personal and parochial papers. When he had planned for the Advent season, in which he so delighted, the training of a class for Confirmation, and had begun his course of teaching. When he had met his brethren and old friends at Hartford, at the recent Consecration there; and enjoyed them all, with a peculiar zest. When he had spent a happy day beside his father's hearth; glad that it rained, that he might stay at home and

;

* His mortal part rests in the burying ground at New Haven. It was his desire, recorded years ago, that he might be buried "deep in the ground.”

have them all to his own self: and said that he felt so much better, that he believed he would resume his old poetic trade. When he had spent, with his domestic dear ones, the interval of Sunday, with an even more than wonted cheerfulness; making his latest personal memorandum; and even dating the letter which his little daughter was to send to her grandfather the next day. When he had secured within the fold of Christ the little child of a dear friend, whose baptism had, for weeks, been providentially delayed. When he was yet engaged in the choicest work of his true pastoral heart, in feeding the lambs of Jesus, and had not yet wholly preached the sermon which he had prepared for little children. In an instant, "in the twinkling of an eye," (so that he gave the hymn from memory which he could not find in his familiar prayer-book,* and had to say the benediction on his knees,†) in an instant, "in the twinkling of an eye," "the silver cord" was "loosed, the golden bowl" was "broken, the pitcher" was "broken at the fountain, the wheel" was "broken at the cistern,

* It is remarkable that, in his embarrassment, though he gave out the first line of the eighty-eighth hymn, "Soldiers of Christ, arise!" he announced it by number as the one hundred and eighty-eighth, the third verse of which is as follows:

"Determined are the days that fly

Successive o'er thy head;
The numbered hour is on the wing,
That lays thee with the dead."

In two hours he was "with the dead."

† An admirable sermon by the Lord Bishop of Fredericton, preached in the Church of the Advent, three Sundays before Dr. Croswell's death, contains the following sentence: -" Suppose we were to be seized with a stroke of paralysis, or of any sudden disease, where could we be found with so much comfort as on our knees, in public prayer?" How strange a coincidence!