Ten days after this, Mr. Marsh and Mr. Williams went to Diarbekir to attend the second annual meeting of the mission. The next day Dr. Lobdell prepared a sermon, talked with a crowd of papists, preached to eighty-five patients, delivered his sermon to the church in the evening, and went to bed with a chill and fever. On the day following, he wrote his last letter, and made his last entry in his journal. He gradually grew worse, and was at times delirious. A message was sent for the absent brethren, but, owing to the disturbed state of the country, it was the twentieth day of his sickness, and only five days before his death, when Mr. Marsh reached Mosul. As he entered the room, the Doctor threw his arms about his neck and wept. The church-members prayed earnestly for his recovery, and were eager to serve as watchers. He passed easily away, as the Sabbath was closing, on the 25th of March, 1855, to his eternal rest. His age was twenty-eight. Dr. Lobdell's life was short to fill four hundred pages in Professor Tyler's excellent Memoir, but the volume is none too large. His life, measured by activities and results, was long. His character was many sided, and every side glowed with consecrated ardor. He made the most of himself as a man, a scholar, a Christian, and a Christian missionary. Like the Apostle Paul, "forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before," he pressed "toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." He had a strong desire to go as a missionary to China, but the author, in his official correspondence, though seldom venturing to oppose such predilections, was so impressed with the difficulties to be overcome at Mosul, and with Dr. Lobdell's adaptation to that field, that he called his attention to it, and soon received the reply that he would go, as soon as he could get ready; and from that time the new field grew in his affections. That he could or would have done more for the kingdom of Christ, in any other sphere of labor, no one who attentively considers his remarkable life will venture to affirm.