was, however, as a pastor, that this pure-minded, consecrated minister of the gospel, in my judgment, did his best work. Many to-day who are scarcely known to the community where they live, will mourn the loss of one whom they looked upon as pastor, friend and spiritual guide, one who came to them in their hours of loneliness and sorrow and brought to them a rich blessing. Earth seems poorer to-day on account of our great loss, but heaven is the richer.

Rev. Mr. Bacon, for some years pastor of the Baptist church at Marblehead, had become acquainted with Edward when he was at home on his summer vacations. He was now pastor of the Baptist Church in Manchester. What follows is taken from one of the papers of that city.

"On Sunday, the subject of Mr. Bacon's sermon was, "The Coronation of a Consecrated Life.' He referred very tenderly to the rare Christian qualities of head and heart as maintained by Mr. Lawrence, and said that this sudden blow came with a peculiar sense of disappointment to himself, as he had anticipated much pleasure from his contemplated settlement in Manchester."

CHAPTER XL.

HE NEVER COMES.

God will not take

The spirits which He gave and make
The glorified so new

That they are lost to me and you.

-George Klingle.

Nothing need be said of the feelings of the bereaved mother on leaving Baltimore, with all its sacred associations, and reaching her daughter's in Syracuse, where also memories of the past surged upon her. A sickness followed, so severe that it seemed as if it would be very easy to slip out of this mortal life. But I had a very strong desire to live to do what I could towards carrying out Edward's plans. He had promised to revise his missionary lectures as many had urged, and it fell on me to secure their revision and publication. The cordial reception of this book-Modern Missions in the East, and the letters sent me about it, not only from our own country, but from friends and missionaries in various parts of the world, have brought consolation not to be described.

It need not be said that the tribute to my son by his Baltimore friends touched me tenderly. On the walls of the church, at the side of the pulpit where he had stood Sunday after Sunday, was placed a beautiful tablet bearing the inscription:

EDWARD A. LAWRENCE. D. D.

SERVED HIS MASTER WITH ALL ZEAL AND FAITHFULNESS IN THIS

PLACE AND IN THE STREETS AND LANES OF THE CITY

FROM JUNE 9TH, 1889, TILL NOVEMBER IOTH,

1893, WHEN GOD TOOK HIM.

Comforting letters continued to come to me, of which three or four follow:

From Rev. Joseph B. Stitt, of Baltimore:

I very greatly esteemed your dear son. My acquaintance with him began at the meetings of the Eclectic Club. His rare facility of speech without special preparation, the evidence he always gave of unusual scholarship, the absence of everything that indicated temper, his genial manners, and an expression in his eyes that told of sincercity and soul, made him a favorite amongst us. We always looked forward with special pleasure to the meetings at which he read the essays. His last paper gave us an insight into his character which was a revelation. But, after all, it was only in keeping with his great love for his fellowmen, and particularly for the poor and unfortunate. Already he has heard-"Well done" from that Saviour whose life on earth he sought so earnestly to imitate. The "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren," will surely be said to him.

A manlier man, a truer type of the Christian gentleman, a more self-sacrificing disciple of Jesus, an abler and a more enthusiastic minister of the New Testament, I have never known.

"Transferred to higher service" may be truthfully said of him. "Therefore are they before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple.'

From Rev. Dr. S. M. Newman, of the First Congregational Church in Washington, D. C.:—

In my impression of your dear son I find that the chief elements are not his abilities, mental and otherwise, though they were great, not his actual utterances, though they were always helpful and sagacious, but they are the profound unity of his mind and character, the oneness of his life without blemish and bias or vagary of any sort.

We have spent some times together which were of the greatest value to me. I remember one night when we roomed together at some meeting of our Conference. I shall never forget the way in which our minds began to kindle, until we were overflowing with fun and good fellowship. Laughter became contagious, and repartees quick and effective. How pure he was! No doubtful jest mingled with our thoughts. It was all a part of the delight of God's human servants, unburdened for a few moments from their toil.

Then the talks about books and about study. How I shall miss him, miss his inspiring help! How I treasure his memory and rejoice that I have known him! I hope to meet him by and by.

From Rev. D. M. Beach, formerly a pastor in Cambridge, Mass., now in Minneapolis, Minn., March 8th, 1894.

I never met Mr. Lawrence, and especially never spent any prolonged time with him, without reaping great benefit to myself, partly by reason of his ample and intelligent information, which he knew

how tactfully, and in an interesting manner, to impart, and partly by reason of the fine and inspiring temper which he possessed. We would talk over wide ranges of current events, and would enter into the highest realms of thought and feeling. All this was to me a channel of the greatest delight, as I think it was also to him. He was one whom to know was to be enriched and ennobled by the very knowing. I have had friends who have stood in somewhat intimate relations to him, all of whose testimony is in the same direction.

He had the greatest interest in his field of work at Baltimore, and would discuss its possibilities with the enthusiasm of an ardent and yet chastened and earnest nature. He was especially well poised in his conception of current discussions. On the one hand, he was thoroughly intelligent, well informed, animated by the spirit of the time, enthusiastic for the new light and life dawning upon us; and, on the other hand, he was marked by a noble conservatism of temper, and a desire thoroughly to balance conflicting claims. He exhibited, in fact, the spirit of the true seer. Not henceforth to have the opportunity of meeting and conversing with him from time to time, as in the past, I count one of the deprivations of my life. A near friend of mine, who was a specialist at Johns Hopkins while Mr. Lawrence was at Baltimore, and who is himself one of the strongest of the younger literary men of our time, has conveyed to me a similarly noble mention of him as he came in contact with him in that city.

The last time I saw Mr. Lawrence was at the meeting of the American Board at Worcester, last October. In the stirring and vastly important debate of Thursday morning, at that meeting, he stepped modestly forward among the successive speakers, and entered a plea for a noble and true missionary policy. His attitude was that of a true, earnest-hearted, scholarly and devoted pastor and preacher dwelling on such a theme. I took his hand later in the day with warm words of appreciation for what he had said, and so we parted, -I little thinking that the world was to be poorer and Heaven richer so soon, by reason of his, to us, untimely departure from among us. His memory, I am sure, will live among all who knew him as a sweet and inspiring suggestion of what it is given by Christ unto nobly endowed humanity to be and to become.

In various matters connected with these reminiscences, I have found Edward's secretary, or what he called his sermon case, of great service. It is in the library at Linden Home near his own standing desk, and not far from his father's. He planned it for a special purpose, and it is arranged precisely as he left it, showing what a life-work he had anticipated. There are outlines and clippings on all sorts of subjects-humorous, social, aesthetical, sociological, political, practical, historical, theological, ethical, intellectual, moral and spiritual.

One of those events that sometimes come unexpectedly to mourners, bringing peculiar consolation, occurred early in 1898. It was the erection of a tablet in memory of my son, in the dear Poughkeepsie Church. This was done at the suggestion of the beloved pastor of the church, Rev. W. Herman Hopkins. The fact that this event took place fifteen years after Edward resigned his pastorate there, adds to its interest and significance. The following account is abridged from a Poughkeepsie paper:

Appropriate services were held in connection with its erection on Sunday, Jan. 16th, 1898, the anniversary of Mr. Lawrence's birth, which also occurred on a Sunday in 1847. There was a large congregation, and Miss Andrus, who had been the organist during Mr. Lawrence's entire pastorate, played his favorite selections, opening with Wagner's beautiful Pilgrim Chorus, and closing with the Cujus Animan from the Stabat Mater. Letters were read from Rev. Dr. Gladden and Rev. Dr. Lyman Abbott. From Mr. Hopkins' impressive discourse on the text, "Not to be ministered to but to minister," only the last passage can be given:

"We welcome this tablet to our walls to-day because it bears the figures that tell of a long and faithful ministry, and because it bears in larger letters still the name of a true minister whose influence will always be with this church, and following in whose steps we shall all come near to Jesus Christ."

Behind the tablet is a portrait of Edward. The tablet is of brass, on a background of oak, and bears this inscription:

IN MEMORY OF

EDWARD A. LAWRENCE, D. D.

BORN IN 1847. DIED 1883.

1875-MINISTER OF THIS CHURCH-1883.

NOT TO BE MINISTERED UNTO, BUT TO MINISTER.