Apart as he stood from the tumult and the frivolities of his age, he was yet of it, and sensibly and beneficently influenced it for its higher and nobler weal. In politics, as we know, he was a liberal conservative,--a conserver of what was best in the present and the past, and an advancer of all that tended to true and harmonious progress. His knowledge of men and things was wide and deep; in the philosophic thought and even in the science of his time he was deeply read; while he was lovingly interested in all nature, and especially in the common people, whom he often wrote of and touchingly depicted in their humble ways of toil as well as of joy and sorrow. Above all, he was a man of high and real faith, who believed that "good" was "the final goal of ill;" and in "the dumb hour clothed in black" that at last came to him, as it comes to all, he confidingly put his trust in Loving Omnipotence and reverently and beautifully expressed the hope of seeing the guiding Pilot of his life when, with the outflow of its river-current into the ocean of the Divine Unseen, he crossed the bar. For humanity's sake and the weal of the world in a coming time this was his joyous cry:-- "Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws. * * * * * "Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good. * * * * * "Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be!"