building, full of hopeless sorrow, we saw pulpit and altar adorned with a rich violet pall, on which, at intervals, hung wreaths of white lilies. So something of the pomp of victory was mingled with our bitter sense of loss. The nation's chief was gone, but with the noble army of martyrs we now beheld him, crowned with the unfading glory of his work. Mr. Clarke's life possesses an especial interest from the fact of its having been one of those rare lives which start in youth with an ideal, and follow it through manhood to old age; parting from it only at the last breath, and bequeathing it to posterity in its full growth and beauty. This ideal appeared to him in the guise of a free church, whose pews should not be sold, whose seats should be open to all, with no cumbrous encounter of cross-interests,--a church of true worship and earnest interpretation, which should be held together by the bond of veritable sympathy. This living church he built out of his own devout and tender heart. A dream at first, he saw it take shape and grow, and when he flitted from its sphere he felt that it would stand and endure. In marriage Mr. Clarke had been most fortunate. He became attached early in life to a young lady of rare beauty, and of character not less uncommon, to whom he once wrote some charming lines, beginning,-- "When shall we meet again, dearest and best? Thou going eastward, and I to the west?" This attachment probably dated from the period of his theological studies at Meadville, Pa. In due course of time the two lives became united in a most happy and helpful partnership. Mrs. Clarke truly attained the dignity of a mother in Israel. She went hand-in-hand with her husband in all his church work. She made his home simple in adornment but exquisite in comfort. She was less social in disposition than he, less excitable, indeed, so calm of nature that her husband, in giving her a copy of my first volume of poems, wrote on the fly-leaf, "To the passionless, 'Passion Flowers,'" and in the lines that followed compared her to the Jungfrau with its silvery light. This calmness, which was not coldness, sometimes enabled her to render a service which might have been difficult to many. I remember that a young minister, a fresh convert from Calvinistic doctrine, preached one Sunday a rather crude sermon, in Mr. Clarke's absence. After the close of the service Mrs. Clarke went up to the speaker, who was expected to preach that evening at a well-known church in the city, and said, "Mr. ----, if you intend to give the sermon we have just heard at the ---- church this evening, you will do well to omit certain things in it." She proceeded to mention the changes which appeared to her desirable. Her advice, most kindly given, was no doubt appreciated.