I was present at a funeral, where, in the sickness or absence of the pastor, Mr. Gallaudet had been requested to officiate.  It was on a bleak and wintry day in spring:  the wind blew, and the late and unwelcome snow was falling.  There was much to make the occasion melancholy.  It was the funeral of a young girl, the only daughter of a widow, who had expended far more than the proper proportion of her scanty means in giving the girl showy and useless accomplishments.  A cold taken at a dance had resulted in quick consumption, and in a few weeks had hurried her to the grave.  Without proper training and early religious instruction, it was difficult to know how much reliance might safely be placed on the eagerness with which she embraced the hopes and consolations of the Gospel set before her on her dying bed.  Her weak-minded and injudicious mother felt that she should be lauded as a youthful saint, and her death spoken of as a triumphant entrance into heaven.

There was much to offend the taste in the accompaniments of this funeral.  It was an inconsistent attempt at show, a tawdry imitation of more expensive funeral observances.  About the wasted face of the once beautiful girl were arranged, not the delicate white blossoms with which affection sometimes loves to surround what was lovely in life, but gaudy flowers of every hue.  The dress, too, was fantastic and inappropriate.  The mother and little brothers sat in one of the two small rooms; the mother in transports of grief, which was real, but not so absorbing as to be forgetful of self and scenic effect.  The little boys sat by, in awkward consciousness of new black gloves, and crape bands on their hats.  Everything was artificial and painfully forlorn; and the want of genuineness, which surrounded the pale sleeper, seemed to cast suspicion on the honesty and validity of her late-formed hope for eternity.

But the first words of prayer, breathed forth, rather than uttered, in the low tones the speaker was most accustomed to use, changed the aspect of the poor place. He was genuine and in earnest.

The mother’s exaggerated sobs became less frequent, and real tears glistened in eyes that, like mine, had been wandering to detect absurdities and incongruities.  We were gently lifted upwards towards God and Heaven.  We were taught a lesson in that mild charity which “thinketh no evil,”—­which “hopeth all things, and endureth all things;” and when the scanty funeral train left the house, I could not but feel that the ministration of this good man there had been—­

“As if some angel shook his wings.”

We preserve even trifling memorials of friends whom we have loved and lost; and even these recollections, deeply traced, though slight in importance, may bear a value for those who knew and estimated the finely organized and nicely-balanced character of the man who loved to “do good by stealth,” and who has signalized his life by bringing, in his own peculiar and quiet way, many great enterprises from small beginnings.