From the first glimpse we catch of him, when, at 17
years of age, he had given his head and heart to Plato, he strikes us as
no ordinary character; and our wonder deepens at every step, till at last
we behold him sinking exhausted amidst his labors, and all Christendom
gathered in sorrow around his grave.
His native instincts, tastes and sympathies were all singularly pure and
generous. His family attachments were strong. In the latest periods of his
life, when she had long been dead, the name of his mother could not be
mentioned by him without a visible gush of deep and tender emotion. The
loss of his favorite sister, some years before his own departure, almost
shattered him. For days he drooped and mourned amongst his books, and
could do no work. Only the thought that God had taken her to Himself, and
that He doeth all things well, finally availed to quiet him. So of all his
friends; he never forgot and was never false to them. But his special care
was bestowed upon the young men of the University, who had gathered about
him, in the spirit of a most enthusiastic discipleship, out of all
Germany, and indeed out of nearly all Christendom. To the last he
continued to be a young man himself, as fresh, impulsive and eager, and
with as entire a freedom from all appearance of assumption and authority,
as though his pupils and he were merely peers.
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