historian of the Church, was a high destiny; and his devotion to it had all the ardor of a ruling passion. His history he had now brought down to the period of the Reformation; and with a mind unimpaired by age or disease, and glowing with his theme, he was about entering on the development of that central epoch of modern Christianity, when the summons came to lay aside the earthly for the heavenly. How his heart clung to his life-work, is affectingly shown in the sketch of his last hours by his attached friend and pupil Rauh. We give the substance of the account.

He was at his desk in his lecture room, on Monday, when the attack came upon him. Inúred to pain, and accustomed to master it by his powerful will, he persevered in completing the exercise; though the broken tones of his voice, at times almost inaudible from debility, forced upon his affectionate auditors the conviction expressed in the touching language of one of their number: "This is the last lecture of our Neander!" He reached home in a state of great exhaustion. But after some slight refreshment, he immediately resumed his usual afternoon employments. For three successive hours, though often interrupted by increasing weakness, he dictated on his Church History. Late in the afternoon, the symptoms of dangerous illness becoming more and more marked, his anxious sister insisted that he should give himself rest. But he could not be persuaded to quit his work. "Nay, let me go on !" he

exclaimed: "can every day-laborer work as much as he will, and would you deny it to me!" At length he was obliged to yield, and allow himself to be conveyed to bed. The next morning he was forced, by the increased violence of his malady, to consent that his usual lecture should be deferred; "but," as he expressly added, "only for to-day!" From this time it was an incessant struggle for supremacy between the mind and the body. In the afternoon, he called imperatively for his reader;* and blamed his over-anxious friends for having sent him away, and thus interrupted his progress in a work with which he was engaged, Ritter's Palestine. He then listened to the reading of the newspaper by another pupil, with earnest attention; selected what he wished to hear, and commented on this and that of its contents, till at length a heavy slumber overpowered him. The next day also, the daily paper being read to him as usual, the mention of some occurrence in the Church drew from him an exclamation of humorous contempt at the modish spirit of the day; an expressive shrug indicated his dissatisfaction at another. This day he experienced a little relief, from the refreshment of a more quiet night, which encouraged his desponding friends. But on Friday evening the last ray of hope was extinguished. Paralysis, the result of his exhausting disease, seized upon the kidneys. The fatal hiccough set in, and allowed not a mo

* An affection of the eyes, which had increased almost to blindness, had for some two years rendered such assistance necessary.

ment's sleep. This scene of distress continued four hours, without mitigation. Groans were forced from him by the extremity of his anguish; and he was heard praying in a weak and plaintive tone, which drew tears from every eye, "Oh God! that I might sleep!" But the energy of his spirit was not yet quenched. The next afternoon, though in an agony of pain, the longing to be again at work in his great calling seemed to awaken in full force. He insisted that he would no longer be confined in bed; and with a feverish impatience, never seen in him before, ordered a servant to bring his clothes that he might rise. A pupil who was at hand vainly tried to soothe him. Even his sister's entreaties were of no avail, till she said to him: "Remember, dear Augustus, your own words to me, when I resisted the physician's orders, -'It is all from God, and we must yield cheerfully to his will !'" "True," he gently replied in an altered tone; "it all comes from God, and we must thank him for it!" Through all the variations of his sickness, his wonted. tender consideration for his friends did not forsake him. He would not allow his pupils to neglect their duties in order to attend upon him; watched lest his sister should not take needful rest, and received every slight service with the most touching gratitude. Even when scarcely able to speak, from pain and weakness, he would make the utmost effort to express his thankfulness. One little characteristic trait deserves to be mentioned. His large income, always devoted more to others than himself, was

yet insufficient for his multiplied charities, so that he was often perplexed and distressed when he found a new object of compassion which he had not the means of relieving. He practised the most rigid economy in his own personal expenses, that he might have more for others. Every luxury was in his view a robbery of the poor. So fixed were his habits in this respect, that when a little champagne was offered him during this last sickness, he promptly refused it with the expression, "O that is a foolish indulgence !"

The final scene is one most characteristic of the man, as well as one of the most striking ever witnessed in the chamber of death. A wine bath had been prepared for him, as a last resort. Refreshed and strengthened by it, he was borne from the darkened room where he had lain hitherto into his study, that cheerful little apartment opening to the sun, which had been so long the workshop and the paradise of the man of thought. Here for nearly twenty years he had studied and written. From this spot had gone forth those great works which have delighted and instructed Christendom. With thirsty glances he drank in the full golden sunlight, of which he was always so fond.* A spoonful of choice wine being offered him, he did not reject it,-"a significant omen,”

* In this also, "a child of the light," as he sportively called himself (ôradòs rov hλíov) a few days before. "This I have,"”—said he on that occasion,-"in common with the emperor Julian; but that," he added, "Strauss must not know!"

says Rauh, "that the old order of things approached its end." Ere long he murmured dreamily, as if at the close of a long fatiguing walk with his sister, "I am weary; let us now make ready to go home!" Just then the rich sunset glow, pouring through the window, lighted up the shelves from which looked down upon him the masters of thought, with whom for so many years he had held silent but high and endearing communion. Raising himself by a sudden effort from his pillow, he commenced a regular lecture upon New Testament exegesis. Soon a new image passed before his restless fancy. Imagining himself at the weekly meeting of his beloved Seminarium, surrounded by his fondly attached theological pupils, he called for the reading of a dissertation, shortly before assigned, on the material and formal principle of the Reformation. He then dictated the titles of the different courses of lectures to be delivered by him during the next session; among them, "The Gospel of John, from its true historical point of view." His last thoughts amid the struggles of death, were, devoted to the great labor of his life. Beginning at the very passage of his Church History where sickness had arrested his progress, he resumed the thread of thought, and in spite of interruptions, continued to dictate in regular periods for some time. At the close of each sentence he paused, as if his amanuensis were taking down his words, and asked, "Are you ready?" Having closed a division of his subject, he inquired the time. Being told that it was half