[16] His biographer, Mr. Moore, relates of Lord Byron that in all the plenitude of his fame, he confessed that “the depreciation of the lowest of mankind was more painful to him than the applause of the highest was pleasing.”

[17] Peterchen and Gretchen.  She translated it at Genevrier during the illness of her children.

[18] Dr. Gurdon Buck.  He died shortly afterwards.  For more than a quarter of a century be had been a faithful friend of Mrs. Prentiss, and as their family physician had made both her and her husband his debtors alike by his kindness and his skill.  With a generosity so characteristic of his profession, he refused, during all these years, to receive any compensation for his services.  As a surgeon he stood in the front rank; some of the operations, performed by him, attracted wide attention for then—­novelty and usefulness.  He published an account of them, with illustrations, which greatly interested Mrs. Prentiss.  She was almost as fond of reading about remarkable eases in surgery as about remarkable criminal trials.

Dr. Buck was one of the founders and first ruling elders of the Church of the Covenant.  His gratuitous labors in connection with the New York Hospital and other public institutions were very great.  He was a man of solid worth, modest, upright, and devoted to his Lord and Master.

[19] “One of my brightest recollections of this season at Dorset is our last Sunday before returning to town.  We went in the phaeton to Pawlet, where I preached for the Rev. Mr. Aiken.  The morning was pleasant, the road lay through a lovely mountain valley, and the beauty of nature was made perfect by the sweet Sabbath stillness; and our thoughts were in unison with the scene and the day.  I preached on Rest in Christ, and the service was very comforting to us both.  How well I recall the same drive and a similar service early in September of 1876, when prayer was my theme!  What sweet talks and sweeter fellowship we had together by the way, going and coming!”—­Recollections of 1877-8.

[20] Recollections of 1876-7

[21] “Better is it sometimes to go down into the pit with him, who beholding darkness and bewailing the loss of consolation, crieth from the bottom of the lowest hell, My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? than continually to walk arm in arm with angels, to sit, as it were, in Abraham’s bosom, and to have no thought, no cogitation but this, ’I thank my God it is not with me as it is with other men.’”—­HOOKER.

[22] A list of Mrs. Prentiss’ writings, with brief notices of some of them, will be found at the end of the appendix, p. 568.

CHAPTER XV.

FOREVER WITH THE LORD.

1878.

“But a bound into home immortal, And blessed, blessed years.”

I.