HIS INFLUENCE AND SYMPATHY.

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one in suffering he was very tender. His keen sense of humour made him always attractive to children, but his humorous stories and his good advice were admirably dovetailed. From my childhood he has always seemed to me to be continually acting under a sense of divine guidance, and to have felt the Master very near to him. I have known many good and lovable men, but have come across no one who appeared to have less of human weakness about him than he seemed to have. Probably in business affairs he was too trustful of other men, too sanguine as to results and consequently too speculative.

"With all the plainness of his attire there was often a spiciness about his outward appearance. He was very particular in these things. Careful and methodical as he was in rendering accounts of moneys entrusted to him, he was free and liberal in his own expenditure especially when others benefited by it. His accounts rendered to the Meeting for Sufferings are models. Never at a loss as to how to get out of a difficulty, never appearing to forget a matter of real importance, he would lose umbrellas and gloves, and was conscious of a weakness in this direction. Many correspondents have written to him most gratefully as to his loving influence and kindly help and sympathy under very varied circumstances. I find how much his character comes out as I read these appreciative letters, so diverse in interest and the standpoint of the writer. I was much interested in reading a letter from one whose breadth of thought would have alarmed many. I do not suppose he, [Isaac Sharp], agreed with all that his correspondent wrote by any means. Yet the writer felt that he could fearlessly unfold his views to him.. People of very different temperament were equally sure of his sympathy."

* The standing Executive Committee of the Society of Friends which retains the significant name it adopted in the seventeenth century during the cruel persecution of Friends. The name is not inappropriate at the present day as plans for the relief of almost world-wide suffering are considered by this committee.

When Isaac Sharp was about the age of sixty he met with losses and complications in his private business affairs which caused him the keenest anxiety, and led to his winding his business up, disposing of all assets, and paying his creditors. But he never recovered the position of comparative ease in which he had previously lived. He left his pleasant home, "Dairy Knoll," near Middlesbrough, and henceforth had no settled abode of his own. He resided for some time with his daughter and son-in-law, and afterwards with his brother and sister Dunning, and, later still, with his widowed sister, Priscilla Dunning, at Broadstairs. For a while he seemed well-nigh crushed by this blow, brought so low indeed that death would have seemed a welcome visitor. How amidst all this he could have carried on his labours as a minister is a marvel. As years passed by, he realised more fully than was possible at first, that this overwhelming trial led to to the detachment necessary for the wide service that lay before him.

In reference to this trial the relative last quoted from says: "There can be no doubt that he had placed confidence in some person, or persons, who proved unworthy of it. He had probably embarked in too many schemes for a man absorbed in business on the one hand for the Pease family, and often away for months together on religious service. have alluded before to his sanguine temperament, most useful to him throughout life, and yet tending to foster a speculative spirit. It should not be inferred from his business difficulties that he was not a business-like man. A man of business he was in many ways essentially. He was ready of resource, fond of experiment, had always a wide grasp of things, and also a knowledge of detail; to the last he was receptive of a new idea. He was an excellent accountant, and very accurate in any accounts he had to render as a trustee, or as a travelling minister. He kept up his character for this to the last, and was most anxious to do so, notwithstanding the labour involved. With his industry I am more and more impressed."