not supplied with food from without, he determined to write a treatise on
a subject which had greatly interested him, and which would oblige him to
bestow much of his time and thought upon it, if indeed he could hold out
to finish the work. During the period while he was engaged in writing
it, his wife, who had seemed in perfect health, died suddenly of
pneumonia. Physical suffering, mental distress, the prospect of death at
a near, if uncertain, time always before him, it was hard to conceive a
more terrible strain than that which he had to endure. When, in the hour
of his greatest need, his faithful companion, the wife of many years of
happy union, whose hand had smoothed his pillow, whose voice had consoled
and cheered him, was torn from him after a few days of illness, I felt
that my, friend's trial was such that the cry of the man of many
afflictions and temptations might well have escaped from his lips: "I was
at ease, but he hath broken me asunder; he hath also taken me by my neck
and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark. His archers compass
me round about, he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he
poureth out my gall upon the ground."

I had dreaded meeting him for the first time after this crushing blow.
What a lesson he gave me of patience under sufferings which the fearful
description of the Eastern poet does not picture too vividly! We have
been taught to admire the calm philosophy of Haller, watching his
faltering pulse as he lay dying; we have heard the words of pious
resignation said to have been uttered with his last breath by Addison:
but here was a trial, not of hours, or days, or weeks, but of months,
even years, of cruel pain, and in the midst of its thick darkness the
light of love, which had burned steadily at his bedside, was suddenly
extinguished.

There were times in which the thought would force itself upon my