What it would have broken the heart of other men to have
staid in, it broke his heart to leave. I viewed him with intense
curiosity. Five or six of his brother ministers came up one by one,
and silently took hold of his twisted hands. I don't think they said
a word; I am sure he did not. He did not look at them, for his head
was buried on one of his cheap, home-made crutches, and from his pocket
he had taken a worn and faded handkerchief, with which he was checking
his tears. After he had gotten back to his pew, some ministers here
and there over the audience got up and testified to what the man had
been and what work he had done. Some of them had seen him, crippled
as he was and suffering the agony of rheumatism, driving miles through
the falling snow to fill an appointment to preach. Somehow it seemed
to me a eulogy of the dead--and it was. When I saw him the next morning
he had the air of a man who had met a great loss, instead of a man who
had just parted with a life of labor and physical anguish, but there
was still the last time look about him. And it was the last time. In
six months from that time he was dead. What shall we say when such a
life of self-sacrifice passes on to the stars? What can we say, except
to speculate on the boundless possibilities that eternity must contain
for such a life.
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