hung upon a diamond pivot, fit to weigh the tenth part of a hair, so conscientious he was, so patient, so thoughtful, so considerate, so complete in his knowledge of every principle and every detail of the law of the land. When he held up the scales, he not only weighed accurately, but everybody felt that he weighed accurately. But his very modesty, his distrust of himself, his fear lest he should go too far or too fast, deprived him to some extent of what might be called the courage of his judicial convictions. Nelson, when they sat together, always took care to assure himself from Judge Prentiss that he was right in his conclusions. They never differed. It would have been very difficult to have brought Judge Nelson to a different conclusion from what he was aware Judge Prentiss had arrived at. But the sword of justice in Nelson's hand was "the sword of the Lord and of Gideon." And when a decision was reached, it was put in force without delay or further debate, and without recall. And so it was that the court became like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. It carried with it an inevitable respect and confidence. It was a terror to the evil-doer, and the prompt protection of the just.

And yet so modest, even in that fine and ripe and consummate experience and knowledge that Judge Prentiss had attained, so modest was he in its exercise, that it was difficult to bring him to a final decision in important matters without the assistance of Judge Nelson. And he never could be brought, though much urged, to go to the city of New York to assist in the discharge of the press of business there, as it is customary for judges to do, and as I am frank to say he ought to have done. He did himself injustice by

the excess of his modesty; but, after all, it was an error on the praiseworthy side.

These desultory observations upon Judge Prentiss's life, in its various relations, may perhaps have indicated sufficiently what I desire to convey in regard to the qualities of his character and his intellect; he was a man of rare and fine powers, of complete attainments in jurisprudence, a student and a thinker all the days of his life; conservative in all his opinions, conscientious to the last degree, thoughtful of others, a gentleman in grain, because he was born so, a Christian in the largest sense of the term, whose whole life was spent in the careful discharge of his duty, without a thought of himself, his own aggrandizement, or his own reputation. I saw him for the last time I ever saw him on the bench of his court, towards the close of his life, perhaps at the last term he ever held. He was as charming to look at as a beautiful woman, old as he was. His hair was snow-white, his eyes had a gentleness of expression that no painter can do justice to; his face carried on every line of it the impress of thought, of study, of culture, of complete and consummate attainment. His cheek had the color of youth. His figure was as erect and almost as slender as that of a young man. His old-fashioned attire, the snowy ruffle, and white cravat, the black velvet waistcoat, and the blue coat with brass buttons, was complete in its neatness and elegance. And the graciousness of his presence, so gentle, so courteous, so dignified, so kindly, was like a benediction to those who came into it. Happy is the man to whom old age brings only maturity and not decay. It brought to him not the premonitions of weakness, of disease, and

dissolution, but only ripeness-ripeness for a higher and a better world. It shone upon him like the light of the October sun on the sheaves of the ripened harvest.

Of his private and domestic life I forbear to speak. Historical societies have nothing to do with that. Some here are old enough to remember the admirable woman, his wife. Some may still remember his home, in a day when, as I have said before, the times were different from what they are now. Steam had not put out the fire on the hearth. Ostentation had not paralyzed hospitality. The houses swarmed with healthy children. There were fewer books, but more study. There was less noise, and more leisure. There was plainer living, and better thinking. He had, as some knew, peculiarities - eccentricities, they might be called-in his personal conduct. They were nothing, probably, but the outgrowth of a strong individuality, which consideration for others restrained from having any other vent. His ways were exact; they were set; they were peculiar. When he came down from his chamber in the morning, and his family and his guests were in the house, he spoke to no one. It was understood that no one should speak to him. He passed through them as if in a vacant room to his particular chair. He took down the Bible and read a chapter; and he rose up and offered a prayer. And then he went to the breakfast-table. After that, there was no courtesy more benignant and kindly than his. And that was an unvarying practice; and every one who knew the ways of his household respected it. It was the flower of that old-time reverence which distinguished his whole life; when he came forth in the morning, he spoke to God first.

It never seemed to me-I was too far away at the time of his funeral to be present-it never seemed to me that he was dead. It never seemed as if I should find his grave if I explored your cemetery. He seemed to illustrate how it was that in the old days it came to be believed that some men departed this life without dying. He looked to me like a man who was only waiting to hear the words, "Friend, come up higher";—like one who in due time would pass on before us, not through the valley of the shadow of death, appointed to all the living, but walking away from us, upward and onward, until, like the prophet of old, he walked with God, and disappeared from our sight among the stars.

It has been said, and often repeated, that history is philosophy teaching by example. That is as true of personal history as of national because the one is only the aggregate of the other. The mere flight

of time does not make history. For countless centuries the land we live in lay under the eye of the Almighty, and the morning and the evening rose and fell upon it, and the summer and the winter came and went, but it had no history, because it had no civilized life. History is the story of the life of men; principally the public and conspicuous men; strictly the aggregate life of all men. There are lives enough that terminate at the grave, that display no example, point no moral, transmit no inheritance. They are but the dust that returns to the dust again. No historical society need busy itself about them. They are not those that make the history of a nation great. I have spoken (how imperfectly, no one knows better

than I do) of one of the illustrious lives of the earlier annals of Vermont. But he did not stand alone. He stood among his peers, among the men of his day in the State of Vermont, eminent, useful, distinguished in all the departments of life, and especially in public life. They are all gone-like him-with him. They have bequeathed to us a history, than which there is no better. There are more splendid histories; there are none more worthy, more noble, than that of our own State of Vermont. No people have more right to be proud of their history than we have.

And the moral of such lives is, that it is for us to preserve that history unimpaired and unstained, and to transmit it to the children who are growing up about us, and who will so soon fill our places.

Our

How shall it be done? By seeing to it that the quality of the men in public places and public trusts does not run down. I do not say this because I think it needs specially to be said in the State of Vermont. high places are still worthily filled. But it is a point to which the attention of American people everywhere needs to be directed. As long as these lives are noble and great, so long we shall maintain the honor of the history and the beneficence of the prosperity of the State of Vermont.

It is a common saying that this is a government of the people. That is a mistake; there never was a government of the people. No people can administer a government; they only designate the men who shall administer it. That is what they have to do, and all they can do. We have seen the manner of men that our fathers placed in the discharge of public trusts. If the same superiority which they demanded, we demand,