There is no desire to represent the subject of this notice as a perfect character. Mr. Stearns had his faults, but they were not conspicuous, nor all of them without apology. Perhaps, he relied too much upon his own judgment. But then his opinions and plans were matured by no ordinary reflection. He shrunk from the active employments of his profession. But to his imagination, its duties were too great and its responsibilities too awful, for the healthiest constitution rashly to undertake them. If he loved fame, he despised unmerited popularity. If he sometimes offended by the severity of truth, he never took shelter beneath the disguises of hypocrisy. No man was more sensible of his own imperfections. No man studied himself with more pertinacity and discrimination. No man was less disposed to excuse his own faults, or, generally, more charitable towards the imperfections of his fellow-men. Mr. Stearns's character was not assumed, but formed; not created by his own efforts, but developed, pruned and trained. He was always himself. Above imitation, he cannot profitably, in all things, be imitated. Mr. Stearns was about five feet and ten inches in height. His carriage was erect, his form light and spare,—his head small and well turned,-his eyes blue, large and rolling,-his face habitually pale,-his brow overcast with a pensive but not joyless expression. When animated, his countenance, not remarkably prepossessing by nature, underwent a surprising change. The cheek flushed, the eye stood out, the frame became tremulous with emotion, and, at times, the whole soul seemed to look through the face. His features have never been expressed on canvass. This, friendship may regret; but there are some traits of his character, and some memorials of his piety and mind, which will live in the hearts of a few for ever. In the death of Mr. Stearns, hopes, long cherished and long deferred, have at length been darkened, to shine no more. In addition to his natural abilities, he had enjoyed such opportunities for study and contemplation, and had been so long under the discipline of affliction,-which, when improved in a Christian manner, is the best of all schools, to the intellect, to the heart, to the conscience, and to the progress of the soul in holiness, that his mind was supposed to be stored with many valuable trains of thought, which the demands of his profession would call forth, to the glory of Christ and the church. Expectations of his future usefulness were not a little increased, during his absence, by that property of his mind which fitted him to derive no ordinary benefit from foreign travel. He could not witness the power of God in the deep,-the awful mountains and enchanting valleys of the old world,—the beautiful and magnificent creations of Raphael and Michael Angelo, the ruins of ancient greatness, sublime in decay,—and not be exalted by thronging associations and emotions. The man, whose "heart throbbed and palpitated," at its first vision of St. Peter's and the Tiber,-the man, whose mind, when it woke to consciousness in Rome, forgetful, for the time, of Cicero and the Cæsars, was filled, during all the Sabbath, with Paul,-" every monument, obelisk, column, portico, tower, dome, associated with Paul,"-must enlarge the boundaries of his soul with such scenes and imaginations, or sink beneath the effort to sustain them. Add to all, Mr. Stearns's prospects of permanent recovery to health, were thought never so great as during the first eight or nine months of his absence from America. The home of his childhood already bloomed with the expectation of his return. But let us forbear, and bid the swelling waters of grief "be still!" He is gone; in the ripeness of his piety, in the flower of his intellect, in the bud of his public usefulness, to fill that station in another life, for which his Father in heaven had trained and prepared him in the present. This providence, so merciful in many of its circumstances, and yet so trying to the sympathies and affections of friends, without one single doubt, is just as it should be. Why, aster long absence, and distant wanderings, the sufferer should have been brought on so far in his homeward course, as to look upon the ocean which washes his native shores and dream, with emotions little short of rapture,-that in a few weeks he should see the greensward by his father's door,-why the ship which was to have borne him over the Atlantic, was destined with its white sails spread, and many companions of his journeyings on board, to leave the solitary stranger, appointed to die in a strange land, without the parental kiss, or a sister to smooth his pillow, or a brother to pray by his side, is somewhat mysterious. Every attention, indeed, was paid him, by his generous countrymen in Paris, and by some who understood not familiarly his tongue. But after all, my brother, "paucioribus lacrimis compositus es, et novissima in luce desideravere aliquid occuli tui."-Tac. Vit. Ag. Surviving relatives will participate in his favorite walks, and listen to his melting supplications, at family prayers, or attempt to sustain his sinking health and cheer away his despondency, no more! But they can solace their griefs by profitable recollections of what he did, what he said, and how he suffered. They can bless God, for the unblemished reputation and the many pleasing traits of character which he possessed. They can imitate his virtues and drink deeply of that spirit which sustained him, through so much affliction, and was all his consolation, in the dying hour; and they can hope, through the grace of God, if faithful to their trusts, for a reunion at last, which can never be broken. As for those disinterested strangers and friends, who with almost fraternal sympathy, gave comfort to the afflicted, in a strange land,—some delicately, but without reserve, offering their purse, some with a mother's sedulity studying and preparing every needful alleviation,-some dropping in to cheer the sick, with a word of news from America, to smile upon him, to console him with the promises of God, to pray by his side, others watching day and night by the couch of pain, treasuring up with care the last words of the departing,— closing the eye, and paying the appropriate offices of affection to the remains,-GOD BLESS THEM! and do so to them, yea, and more, also, in the time of need! Let the church, on which he shone for a moment, as their pastor, and vanished out of sight,-let the numerous societies who, for a little season, enjoyed his ministrations,—call to mind the spirit which he breathed, the precepts and doctrines which he taught, and let him whose star was darkened in its rising, yet realize, from the unclouded firmament in which he shines, the desire of many years, to be useful for a little season in the world! |