"Verily, he was at his post to the last," says Rev. T. B. Thayer, in his eulogy upon Mr. Ballou; "and when the messenger came, he was ready. He fell in the full armor of God, with the helmet of salvation on his head, his spotless heart covered with the breastplate of righteousness, his feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. In one hand he held the shield of faith, and in the other the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God,--the sword which he had for sixty years wielded with such success in his multiplied battles with error and sin, and by which at last he was, through Jesus Christ, made conqueror, and more than conqueror, over death and the grave. Verily, the old man died, as he had lived, faithful, courageous, serene, victorious, to the last." It was in these ripened days of his experience that his counsel was eagerly sought by all, laity and clergy, in private and in public. His activity and anxiety to be about his Master's business carried him constantly into the midst of all important denominational assemblies; and here he was ever received, both his presence and his counsel, with profound respect. If there was contention, misunderstanding, or difficulty of any sort, all eyes were turned upon him who sat so quietly and thoughtfully in their midst; he was their peace-maker, his calm voice stilled the tempest, his finger pointed the way towards the right. As Mr. Thayer says in the eulogy just quoted from: "It will be a long time before we shall get accustomed, in our associations and conventions, to the absence of that venerable form, those gray hairs, and that voice of wisdom, and gentleness, and love, which came like oil on the troubled waters of debate, and drew out the entangled threads of thought, and by quaint queries, by questions which answered themselves, questions plainer than most men's answers, penetrated to the heart of every subject, and showed us, as by a flash of light, the exact point where the truth lay. We shall often desire in our councils his presence, his clear thought, his persuasive language, his gentleness of manner, and his conclusive logic." Mr. Ballou had a most remarkable faculty of seeing through any abstruse question or subject that came up for discussion before any body with which he was sitting in fellowship, and could at once seem to set all right in their midst, by a few shrewdly-uttered words. Another brother has said of him in this respect: "It was wonderful how he would put the needle in amid the tangled skein of reasonings, in a debate, and untie the knot just where the whole might be wound off without any difficulty; and how he would hold to the essential point in an important discussion, and dissipate every obscuration that threatened to darken and eclipse it, was astonishing, and showed where his power as a master reasoner lay. Such was the man." We must now turn from these desultory remarks and references, to describe the end of his earthly mission. CHAPTER XV.