These are a few of the stories; but, as I said, it needs a volume to tell all about our father’s life. I cannot tell in this short space how he worked with the friends of liberty to free the slave; how he raised the poor and needy, and “helped them to help themselves;” how he was a light to the blind, and to all who walked in darkness, whether of sorrow, sin, or suffering. Most men, absorbed in such high works as these would have found scant leisure for family life and communion; but no finger-ache of our father’s smallest child ever escaped his loving care, no childish thought or wish ever failed to win his sympathy. We who had this high privilege of being his children love to think of him as the brave soldier, the wise physician, the great philanthropist; but dearest of all is the thought of him as our loving and tender father. And now, to end this chapter, you shall hear what Mr. Whittier, the noble and honored poet, thought of this friend of his:-- THE HERO. “Oh for a knight like Bayard, Without reproach or fear; My light glove on his casque of steel, My love-knot on his spear! “Oh for the white plume floating Sad Zutphen’s field above,-- The lion heart in battle, The woman’s heart in love! “Oh that man once more were manly, Woman’s pride and not her scorn; That once more the pale young mother Dared to boast ‘a man is born’! “But now life’s slumberous current No sun-bowed cascade wakes; No tall, heroic manhood The level dullness breaks. “Oh for a knight like Bayard, Without reproach or fear! My light glove on his casque of steel, My love-knot on his spear!” Then I said, my own heart throbbing To the time her proud pulse beat, “Life hath its regal natures yet,-- True, tender, brave, and sweet! “Smile not, fair unbeliever! One man at least I know Who might wear the crest of Bayard, Or Sidney’s plume of snow. “Once, when over purple mountains Died away the Grecian sun, And the far Cyllenian ranges Paled and darkened one by one,-- “Fell the Turk, a bolt of thunder, Cleaving all the quiet sky; And against his sharp steel lightnings Stood the Suliote but to die. “Woe for the weak and halting! The crescent blazed behind A curving line of sabres Like fire before the wind! “Last to fly and first to rally, Rode he of whom I speak, When, groaning in his bridle-path, Sank down a wounded Greek.-- “With the rich Albanian costume Wet with many a ghastly stain, Gazing on earth and sky as one Who might not gaze again! “He looked forward to the mountains, Back on foes that never spare; Then flung him from his saddle, And placed the stranger there.