possibility of so doing." Energy, gentleness, conscientiousness and
courtesy were seldom, if ever, blended in such suave accord as in
him. These virtues came out, each in its distinctive lustre, under
the trials and vexations which try human nature most severely. All
who knew him marvelled that he was able to maintain such sweetness
and evenness of temper under provocations and difficulties which
would have greatly annoyed most men. What he was in these outer
circles of his influence, he was, to all the centralization of his
virtues, in the heart of his family. Here, indeed, the best graces
of his character had their full play and beauty. He was the centre
and soul of one of the happiest of earthly homes, attracting to him
the affections of every member of the hearth circle that moved in
the sleepless light of his life. Here he did not rule, but led by
love. It alone dictated, and it alone obeyed. It inspired its like
in domestic discipline. Spontaneous reverence for such a father's
wish and will superseded the unpleasant necessity of more active
parental constraint. To bring a shade of sadness to that venerated
face, or a speechless reproach to that benignant eye, was a greater
punishment to a temporarily wayward child than any corporal
correction could have inflicted.

No one of the hundreds that were present at the sale and dispersion
of the Babraham flock could have thought that the remaining days of
the great and good man were to be so few on earth. He was then
about sixty-five years of age, of stately, unbending form and face
radiant and genial with the florid flush of that Indian Summer which
so many Englishmen wear late in those autumnal years that bend and
pale American forms and faces to "the sere and yellow leaf" of life.
But the sequel proved that he did not abdicate his position too
early. In a little more than a year from this event, his spirit was