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2ri)e blessed memotB of tlje just. 
 
 A 
 
 DISCOURSE 
 
 OCCASIONED BY THE DEATH OF 
 
 JAREDSPARKS, LL.D 
 
 DELIVERED MARCH 18, 1866, 
 
 BEFORE THE FIRST PARISH IN CAMBRIDGE, 
 
 WILLIAM NEWELL, 
 
 MINISTEK OF THE FIRST CHURCH IN CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: 
 SEVER AND FRANCIS, 
 
 BOOKSELLERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 
 
 1866. 
 
.5 
 
 University Press : Welch, Bigelow, & Co., 
 Cambridge. 
 
 
SERMON. 
 
 "The memory of the just is blessed." — Proverbs x. 7. 
 
 One of the most precious of God's gifts is the 
 society of affectionate and virtuous friends. To live 
 under the same roof, to share the same duties and 
 pleasures, with those whom we can love with all the 
 heart, — to feel the gentle influence of their virtues, 
 shining around them with a mild, perpetual light, — 
 to breathe the atmosphere of their lives, to enjoy 
 the sweetness of their daily sympathy and support, 
 
 — to be able to go for counsel and wisdom, for cour- 
 age and patience, to minds into which we can pour 
 out our hopes, fears, and doubts with entire freedom 
 and trust, — to double and prolong our enjoyments 
 by communicating them to others, to whom we 
 are bound, not only by ties of kindred, but by the 
 holier and stronger bonds of affection and respect, 
 
 — to allay our anxieties and griefs by the thought 
 that they are at our side, that they feel for us and 
 with us, and that, whatever may betide, their counte- 
 nances will beam benignantly on our way, — to have 
 our good purposes quickened, our good principles 
 invigorated, and the whole inner being softened and 
 
purified by intimate communion with the living ex- 
 amples of Christian goodness and piety, — who can 
 fully estimate these blessings ? A world, were it ours, 
 would cheaply purchase, if a world could buy, the 
 tender and thoughtful affection, the kind attentions, 
 the cordial aid, the disinterested advice, the wise and 
 pleasant conversation, of the dear companion, par- 
 ent, kinsman, friend, the honored and the loved, in 
 those favored families where the lives of the right- 
 eous are still spared to gladden and to bless the lofty 
 or the lowly dwelling in which the providence of 
 God has placed them. But those lives are held by 
 an uncertain tenure. Over them, as over all, hangs 
 the suspended sword. Over them, as over all, is 
 written the inexorable, yet hiddenly beneficent law. 
 Believing, as we do, in a Father God, believing that 
 he has mad6 the universe in perfect wisdom, and 
 that all the parts of His administration, and all the 
 events of our existence are in unison with the Infi- 
 nite Benevolence that constitutes the essential glory 
 of His nature, we feel that there are wise and kind 
 purposes to be answered by death, which death only 
 can accomplish. Sometimes it is attended with 
 mysteries of pain, suffering, and apparently irrepara- 
 ble loss to the survivors, both in temporal and spir- 
 itual good, which we must wait for the revelations of 
 another life to explain. But these exceptional cases 
 must not shake our faith in truths written on the 
 universe, and proclaimed to us by the messengers of 
 the Most High. As Christians, we believe that all 
 the events of our being are ordered and overruled 
 
by divine wisdom and love ; as Christians, we believe 
 that death to the good is the greatest of blessings, — 
 the portal of Heaven, the change which brings them 
 into near and blissful communion with Christ and 
 with God. A more living life is theirs in the spirit 
 world ; nor is their life on eartl^ wholly ended when 
 they cease to breathe. Their memory still dwells 
 with a beneficent power in the places which they 
 once gladdened with their presence, and in the minds 
 with which they once took sweet counsel in the hal- 
 lowed connections of a happy and religious home. 
 Thus they continue to guide and to bless us, long 
 after their mortal forms have been buried in the 
 dust. They live in the hearts of their kindred. They 
 rise again in the hour of musing to the eyes of 
 mourning affection. They speak to us in accents 
 unheard by the world, but known and felt as theirs 
 in the silent depths of the soul. 
 
 The memory of the just, of the wise, of the truly 
 good, of the truly great, of the servants of Christ 
 and the benefactors of men, has its place among the 
 blessed influences by which the Spirit of God lifts us 
 to a higher plane of feeling and action, and gives a 
 quickening strength to our sometimes dim faith in 
 the realities of the life to come. It rebukes the 
 sad scepticism that hangs over the tomb, and sees 
 only the pale corpse, the shell of the flown spirit, 
 but cannot see the glory and the beauty beyond. 
 When the stunning blow that separates us from the 
 objects of our affection first falls upon us, when that 
 countenance which has long brightened our way is 
 
stamped with the stillness of death, it is hard to re- 
 alize that the soul which once beamed through the 
 eye, and spoke from the lips, is still living and con- 
 scious and happy, though the light of that eye is 
 quenched, and the accents of those lips hushed for- 
 ever. But as we look back from a distance of time, 
 and view the pageantry and circumstances of death 
 in their true light, we are able to discern more clear- 
 ly the sublime truth, over which they have thrown 
 a momentary cloud. Then the bright image of the 
 departed rises up before us, and we hear a voice, 
 saying, as Christ to the doubting disciple, " Be not 
 faithless, but. believing." Has it perished forever, 
 that noble mind, stamped with God's image, trained 
 for God's service ? Are those kind and tender af- 
 fections, that diffused comfort and joy around them, 
 those "thoughts that wander through eternity," 
 those angelic aspirations and hopes that ally man to 
 his Maker, those high capacities that on earth are 
 but half developed, half satisfied, — are all extin- 
 guished forever, buried in the dust ? Is there no 
 other sphere in which they may yet live and grow ? " 
 We cannot believe it. Our reason and our afFectionSj 
 the whispers of hope and the instinctive cravings of 
 our nature, re-echo the good tidings of the Gospel, 
 and both welcome and confirm its message of the 
 soul's immortal life. And never do we feel so pow- 
 erfully the assurance of this truth, as when we recall 
 the remembrance of the gifted and the good, taken 
 from us in the ripening promise of youth, in the 
 more extended usefulness of manhood, or in the 
 
venerable wisdom and mellowed virtues of declining 
 age.* 
 
 The memory of the dead not only quickens our 
 faith in the future world, but it leads our thoughts 
 and our affections heavenward. Our hearts over- 
 leap the chasm that divides us from the world of 
 spirits, and go in quest of their missing objects. We 
 cannot forget them, even amidst all the crowding 
 cares and dizzy excitements of the most busy life, — 
 nor have we any reason to suppose that they will 
 forget us. When we think of them, therefore, we 
 see them waiting for us, as it were, watching anx- 
 iously over our steps, praying for our welfare, invit- 
 
 * I cannot help adding here the coincident expression, at a meeting of 
 the Massachusetts Historical Society, commemorative of Mr. Sparks, by 
 his friend, Professor Parsons, of the same thought, which " pressed upon 
 me," he says, " during the days and evenings when I sat by the bedside 
 where he was dying. There lay a man who had been gifted with excel- 
 lent qualities, and these, during a long and busy life, were disciplined, 
 cultivated, invigorated to the last of that life. Can a rational man be- 
 lieve that all this long progress was towards — nothingness. His wisdom 
 and his goodness were the means of usefulness and of happiness to him- 
 self and to others. Through all those many years they grew and accu- 
 mulated. Is it rational to believe that all this growth and accumulation 
 were only for their own extinction ? I refer not now to religious faith. 
 I appeal only to reasonableness and probability. His unusually long life 
 was far more than commonly useful and happy. But it was also, if 
 judged by any test we can apply, a constant preparation for more useful- 
 ness and more happiness. What is there in the universe, or in its facts, 
 or in its laws, which justifies the belief that all this long continued and 
 ever advancing preparation was for — no end ? — I am sure, and I have 
 reason to be sure that my dear friend would not himself have thought so. 
 And I believe he would regard it as the crowning usefulness of his long 
 and useful life, if the thought of him should suggest to any mind, or con- 
 firm in any mind, the great truth, that Death is but a step forward in 
 life." 
 
8 
 
 ing us to the path which leads upward to their own, 
 and urging us to perseverance in well-doing. Heav- 
 en itself becomes more attractive, when we thus 
 associate with its pleasures and its scenes of duty 
 the images of those whom we have ali'eady loved 
 upon earth. 
 
 Then. too. the memory of the virtuous dead is 
 blessed in the moi^al influence which it exerts over 
 the heart and the life, quickening and strengthen- 
 ing all that is good. And this it does not only b}'^ 
 remindinor us of the uncertainties of life, bv showinsr 
 us its true value and its noblest ends, and by pro- 
 ducing a religious seriousness of feeling, but by 
 keeping before us bright examples of high excel- 
 lence ; and examples, too, to which personal affec- 
 tion adds a quickening power. The life even of a 
 good man whom we never saw wins us to the love 
 and the following of the virtues that were beauti- 
 fully manifested in Ms character, — how much more 
 the pure lives of those whom we have ourselves 
 known, and with whom we have had daily and sweet 
 communion, and whose presence has been as sun- 
 hght to our path I As we call back their departed 
 forms, we see them in a more radiant aspect, — their 
 goodness clothed with a heavenly lustre, and their 
 infiiTuities disappearing in the distance, in that ten- 
 der light which death throws over the venerated 
 and the loved. We cannot think of them without 
 being made better. 
 
 Yes. the memory of the just is indeed blessed. 
 Though for a time it may awaken a painful sorrow. 
 
not to be entirely subdued even by the power of 
 religious faith, it will at length become, what it is 
 designed to be, a means of spiritual improvement, 
 a source of consolation, and a strengthener of 
 Christian faith and hope; it will turn our affec- 
 tions towards God and Heaven ; it will inspire us 
 with holy purposes ; it will check the spirit of 
 worldliness, and keep before us the higher ends of 
 our existence ; it will tend to create or to quicken in 
 our own souls the virtues that have made both our 
 loss and our consolations so- great ; it will give fresh 
 life to the hope of immortality, and prepare us for 
 the unseen world, of which it so loudly speaks. So 
 may it be, fellow-Christians, with the memory of 
 every follower of the Lord, whose goodness, un- 
 known perhaps to the world, and now forgotten 
 by fame, still dwells shrined in the secret recesses 
 of the fond kinsman's heart. So shall it be with 
 the memory of that true disciple of Jesus, who, his 
 earthly Sabbaths being ended, is now rejoicing in 
 the rest and glory of Heaven. 
 
 Ever blessed to his family and friends (and no 
 enemy in the wide world had he, none knew him 
 but to love him) will be the memory of that ex- 
 cellent and eminent man, our fellow-worshipper for 
 many years, who has just passed on into the spirit- 
 world. Death has set his sanctifying seal on his 
 character and his work, and neither will be soon 
 forgotten. The remembrance of his life's labors is 
 bound up with the history of our Washington and 
 the history of the country of which we fondly call 
 
10 
 
 Washington the Father, — now twice saved, with the 
 promise that the bright dawn will be followed by 
 a yet brighter noon, shining more and more unto 
 the perfect day. 
 
 The name of Jared. Sparks stands among the 
 well-known and honored names that adorn our 
 American literature and have acquired a European 
 fame. No more devoted pioneer and explorer, none 
 so full-sheaved a worker in his special department 
 of the field of letters, can be found among the liv- 
 ing or the dead of our .country. And to none do 
 we owe so much as to him for the assiduous care 
 and industry, the sound judgment, and the wise 
 discrimination with which he has collected materials 
 for a full understanding of the men and the times to 
 which his inquiries were directed. 
 
 He was born in Willington, Conn., May 10, 1789. 
 Like so many of our most distinguished men, he had 
 to contend with straitened circumstances in early 
 life, and under the discipline of privation and diffi- 
 culty won strength for a richer success. His boy- 
 hood and youth were employed in the common 
 work of a farm and in mechanical labor. But he 
 had an intense thirst for learning, and gave all his 
 spare time to reading and study. The scanty in- 
 struction of the district schools in his native town 
 served only to a\faken, not to satisfy, his mental 
 cravings, and he seized every opportunity of intel- 
 lectual culture.'" His uncommon attainments and 
 
 * It is said that he shingled the roof of a minister's house in Willington, 
 in return for instruction in Latin. 
 
11 
 
 ardent desire of knowledge attracted the attention 
 of the neighborhood, and by the kindness of friends, 
 who became interested in him and saw his youth- 
 ful promise, he was sent to the Academy in Exeter, 
 N. H., making his way thither on foot, the Rev. 
 Abiel Abbott, of Coventry, carrying his trunk for 
 him swung under his chaise. Diligently using his 
 new opportunities, he was in due time prepared for 
 College, and entered Harvard University in 1811, 
 under President Kirkland, of whom he was a special 
 favorite, and for whom he always entertained the 
 highest reverence and the most grateful and aftec- 
 tionate reg-ard. Thouo;h he was on the whole of a 
 strong constitution, active and vigorous in his hab- 
 its, and capable of great physical exertion, he seems 
 to have been subject to occasional turns of sickness, 
 and to moods of depression. In consequence partly 
 of ill health, partly of his poverty, he was but a little 
 more than two whole years in college, and that, with 
 this disadvantage, he should have graduated as he 
 did, was a proof of his great ability, as well as of the 
 confidence and respect in which he was held by the 
 officers of the College. In his Sophomore year he 
 was teacher in a private family at Havre de Grace, 
 in Maryland ; was there when the town was burnt 
 by the British troops under Admiral Cockburn in 
 May, 1813, and was called out with the militia for 
 the defence of the place.* At the close of his en- 
 
 * Soon after his arrival at Havre de Grace, while he was staying at 
 the public house in that place, in a dejected state of mind, occasioned 
 by some disappointment of his expectations and the loneliness of his sit- 
 
12 
 
 gagement as a teacher he returned to Cambridge, 
 and graduated with honor in 1815. The two fol- 
 lowing years were spent in teaching a private school 
 at Lancaster in this State.* 
 
 nation, among people of a quite different spirit and training from his 
 own, two gentlemen, travellers on their way to Washington, came to 
 the inn. A beautiful island in the Susquehanna attracted their atten- 
 tion, and one of them procured a boat, and invited Mr. Sparks, whom 
 they had met on the piazza, a stranger to them both, to accompany him 
 to the place. After a delightful excursion, and a walk around the island 
 intensely enjoyed by Mr. Sparks in the pleasant society and conversa- 
 tion of the new-comer, who treated him with double cordiality on finding 
 that the young man was a student of Harvard, as he was himself a grad- 
 uate of the College, the Hon. Josiah Quincy, then Representative in 
 Congress, as the stranger proved to be, returned to the inn, and intro-^ 
 duced Mr. Sparks to his companion, the Rev. Dr. Channing. The inter- 
 view gave the forlorn and struggling student new life and spirit. Dr. 
 Channing, who had himself had a similar experience in teaching in Vir- 
 ginia, refreshed and strengthened him by words of sympathy, counsel, 
 and good cheer. And his new friends were his warm friends ever after. 
 — The imagination dwells with interest on the picture of this first meet- 
 ing of his, at the Southern inn on the road to Baltimore and Washington, 
 with those two distinguished men, little dreaming of the after events 
 which were to connect them so intimately with the youthful scholar, the 
 one as the famous preacher of his ordination sermon, the other as his 
 predecessor in the Presidency of Harvard University, as well as his 
 neighbor and associate for many years in Cambridge, where Mr. Sparks 
 lived and died in the street called by the name of his honored friend. 
 
 * He cultivated in this preparatory sphere of service the habits of 
 steady and methodical industry which distinguished him through life. 
 Soon after commencing his school, he writes : " I board at Major Carter's, 
 a mile and a quarter from my school, to and from which I walk twice a 
 day. I rose this morning an hour before suni'ise, and rode five or six 
 miles before breakfast, — an exercise which I shall continue regularly. 
 My school occupies six hours ; and I have resolved to devote, and thus 
 far have devoted, six hours out of the twenty-four to study." And be- 
 fore this he has a memorandum of his walking from Cambridge to Bolton, 
 twenty-six miles, setting out at half past one P. M., and arriving at 
 Bolton at eight in the evening. 
 
13 
 
 In 1817 he was chosen Tutor in Mathematics and 
 Natural Philosophy in Harvard University. Here he 
 soon after commenced the study of divinity. He 
 was at the same time one of an association for con- 
 ducting the North American Review, which had been 
 started two years before. In 1819 he was ordained 
 as Pastor of the First Independent Church in Balti- 
 more. It was on this occasion that Dr. Channing 
 preached the powerful and famous sermon that cre- 
 ated so much interest and excitement at the time, 
 and gave a fresh impulse to the Unitarian contro- 
 versy, ending, as you know, in the disruption, as in 
 Cambridge, of many churches, and the drawing of 
 the lines of sectarian distinction more sharply be- 
 tween the Orthodox, so called, and the Liberal 
 Churches of this country. He remained four years 
 at Baltimore, performing, in addition to the common 
 labors of his profession, in an arduous and important 
 position, a large amount of theological and literary 
 labor, in the editorship of the Unitarian Miscellany, 
 and in controversial publications, called forth by the 
 necessity of maintaining and defending the religious 
 views which he had espoused. 
 
 It was during his ministry at Baltimore, in 1821, 
 that he was elected Chaplain to Congress ; a tribute 
 to his rising worth which, on account of his Unita- 
 rian faith, excited the ire and alarm of the zealots 
 of the time. The clergyman of an Episcopal church 
 in Washington, on the Sunday following the elec- 
 tion, said to his congregation : " By a recent vote of 
 a majority of one branch of our National Legislature, 
 
14 
 
 they have proclaimed to the worlc". in language as 
 loud as thev can speak, that 'thev will not have 
 Christ to rule over them.' One of the members in 
 the minority, after the vote was taken, with deep 
 regret observed, ' "We have voted Christ out of the 
 house.' In looking to the future, what have we not 
 reason to apprehend, when the rulers take counsel 
 together against the Lord and against his anointed?" 
 In the year following his ordination, he published 
 a volume entitled '' Letters on the Ministry, Ritual, 
 and Doctrine of the Protestant Episcopal Church";* 
 and in 1823, "An Inquiry' into the Comparative 
 Moral Tendency of Trinitarian and Unitarian Doc- 
 trines.'' In 1822, he planned and commenced the 
 publication of " A Collection of Essays and Tracts 
 in Theology,*' from various authors, such as Newton, 
 
 * In an able re%-iew of this work, in the Christian Examiner for July, 
 1820, the writer says: •• The work of Mr. Sparks is the best which has 
 appeared, since the time of Chaimcy, on the Episcopal controversy. He 
 had the advantage over Dr. ^liUer in not writing in Presbyterian fett«rs, 
 and in possessing a learning possibly not so various, (for he is a much 
 younger msm.) but far better digested, more systematic and accurate. 
 The cause of letters owes much to this gentleman, and. if it had not sur- 
 rendered him to higher claims, would yet hope much more. In his 
 removal, the University resigned a member on whose reputation and 
 services it set a high value, and it was felt like the loss of a distinguished 
 freeman to the literary republic of the East Under his direction the 
 North American Review made great progress towards that reputation 
 which has enabled it at last (iu conjunction with other publications to the 
 same end) to lower the tone of our Transatlantic traducers, and to give 
 itself no mean proof of the intellectual advances which it vindicates. 
 From this flattering path to a wide reputation, and from the pursuit of 
 favorite studies, he hesitated not to withdraw himself to the ser^-ice of re- 
 ligion, and went, with, to say the least, no elating prospects, to preach in 
 a new field the doctrines of uncorrupt Christianity." 
 
15 
 
 Whitby, Emlyn, Clark, Lardner, Chillingworth, and 
 others, eminent for their talents, learning, and vir- 
 tues, with biographical and critical notices. This 
 extended to six volumes, the last of which was pub- 
 lished in 1826. In 1823, after four years of work in 
 the ministry, on account of impaired health and 
 for various reasons satisfactory to himself, he re- 
 signed his pastoral charge. In his letter of resigna- 
 tion he says : " The religious views by which you 
 are characterized, I believe to be the truths of 
 Heaven, as revealed and proclaimed to the world by 
 the Son of God. To me they aftbrd the choice'st 
 solace in life, and to my mind they are fraught with 
 the most consoling and encouraging hopes which a 
 mortal can carry with him to the presence of his 
 righteous Judge ; and my prayer is, that I may 
 never be weary in using such powers and influence 
 as I may possess to difiuse religious sentiments, 
 which I deem so honorable to God, and so salutary 
 to men." The feeling which he thus expressed 
 never faltered or changed. Among the new scenes 
 and pursuits on which he afterwards entered, he ever 
 maintained his warm interest in the advancement of 
 the doctrines of the Unitarian faith. Always mild, 
 candid, and tolerant, he was yet most earnest in his 
 desire and effort to spread the views which he 
 deemed most " honorable to God, and salutary to 
 men." 
 
 After his retireitient from the ministry and his 
 return to Massachusetts, he was for seven years pro- 
 prietor and editor of the North American Review 
 
16 
 
 In 1828 he published, from original materials, an 
 interesting life of "John Ledyard, the American 
 Traveller." Some years before this, in the course 
 of inquiries undertaken for a friend connected with 
 the University Press, he had conceived the plan of 
 preparing a full and authentic life of Washington, 
 and of collecting from all sources, at home and 
 abroad, the correspondence of that great man, and 
 the official and private documents that might throw 
 light on his public career and the history of his 
 times. In preparation for this work, on which he 
 spent ten years of his life, he made extensive re- 
 searches in various parts of our own country, and 
 then went to Europe and employed a year in exam- 
 ining the public offices in London and Paris, and 
 taking copies of all important papers bearing on his 
 subject. He was received with much courtesy and 
 consideration, and through the kindness and friend- 
 ship of the French Minister, Guizot, as well as of the 
 English officials, he found unexpected facilities for the 
 accomplishment of his enterprise. The first fruits of 
 his labors appeared in 1829-30, in the "Diplomatic 
 Correspondence of the American Revolution," a work 
 in twelve volumes octavo, followed, two years after, 
 by the " Life of Gouverneur Morris, with Selections 
 from his Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers," 
 in three volumes octavo. " The American Almanac," 
 a work of great value and various information, was 
 also originated, and its first volume, for 1830, edited 
 by him. He also became editor of the " Library of 
 American Biography," of which two series were pub- 
 
17 
 
 lished, comprising twenty-five volumes in all, be- 
 tween the years 1834 and 1848, and for which sev- 
 eral of the biographies, such as those of Benedict 
 Arnold, Father Marquette, Count Pulaski, Charles 
 Lee, Ethan Allen, and others, were, prepared by his 
 own indefatigable pen. Thus, in the midst of the 
 execution of his great and specially chosen work, he 
 was carrying on with admirable diligence other lit- 
 erary labors of much interest and value. In 1834, 
 and the three years following, he gave to the world 
 his "Life and Writings of Washington," in twelve 
 octavo volumes, — a work which will ever claim the 
 gratitude of all who love their country and revere 
 the memory of the wise and noble man who did so 
 much to secure its independence, and to lay the 
 foundations deep and strong of our national union 
 and greatness. 
 
 In 1840, he completed the publication of " The 
 Works of Benjamin Franklin, with Notes, and a Life 
 of the Author," containing much before unpublished 
 or uncollected matter, in ten octavo volumes. He 
 soon after made a second journey to Europe, and, in 
 his renewed researches among the French archives, 
 discovered the map with the red line marked upon it, 
 concerning which, and the use made of it in settling 
 the question of the Northeastern Boundary in 1842, 
 there was so much debate, both in this country and 
 in England. In 1854 appeared " Correspondence of 
 the American Revolution, being Letters of eminent 
 Men to George Washington, from the Time of his 
 taking Command of the Army to the End of his Pres- 
 
 3 
 
18 
 
 idency, edited from the Original Manuscripts." This 
 was the last of the important and interesting works, 
 illustrative of American history, which we owe to 
 the patriotic zeal, the patient industry and research 
 of Mr. Sparks. He had previously, however, in 1852, 
 in reply to the strictures of Lord Mahon and others 
 on his mode of editing the writings of Washington, 
 printed two pamphlets, fully vindicating his course, 
 and showing that the only important criticisms were 
 wholly unfounded and unjust. I need not speak, to 
 those who are acquainted with his writings, of th^ 
 thoroughness, carefulness, candor, and discrimination 
 by which they are marked, and their clear, exact, and 
 simple style, reflecting the qualities of his mind and 
 heart. No finer examples can be found of patient 
 research and conscientious devotion to historic truth. 
 
 The brief survey which I have thus given of his 
 literary labors and their abundant fruits, amounting 
 to nearly a hundred volumes, a library in themselves, 
 is enough to show, without any added words of 
 mine, what an enterprising and indefatigable worker 
 he has been ; and what an amount of service in his 
 chosen and providential sphere he accomplished in 
 his meridian strength and zeal, so quiet, yet so per- 
 sistent and effective. Few have done so much as he, 
 and so well. 
 
 When to all this we add his academical engage- 
 ments and lectures, the duties of the Professorship 
 to which, in 1839, he was chosen, the Professor- 
 ship of Ancient and Modern History, — an office 
 which he held for ten years, until, in 1849, he was 
 
19 
 
 elected President of the University which he had 
 loved and served, the worthy successor of Kirkland. 
 Quincy, and Everett, respected and beloved by offi- 
 cers and students, — we may well admire and honor 
 the fruitful industry of his well-spent life. An acci- 
 dent, which for a time crippled his arm and disabled 
 him for the accustomed use of his pen, about fifteen 
 years since, interrupted and finally prevented the 
 execution of a design which he had matured, and 
 for which he had made large preparation, of writ- 
 ing the Foreign Diplomatic History of our American 
 Eevolution/^ But he never murmured. He bore 
 the disappointment with a serene submission, a calm 
 piety and patience, as admirable as the activity and 
 energy with which he had labored in full health 
 and strength. 
 
 The memory of his virtues will forever abide with 
 his friends, shining in their souls with a soft and 
 pleasant light : and so he will continue to serve and 
 to bless them in death, as he served and blessed them 
 in life. Those who knew him best loved him most. 
 "In simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly 
 wisdom, but by the grace of God," he had his " con- 
 
 * It was his orifjinal intention to write a history of the American Rev- 
 
 ^^!<iilV N <i ril |l ^l li »i '»M ^ <| i% li" lia^l in '"^ collection of manuscripts, 
 gathered in this country and in Europe, very rich and abundant materi- 
 als for such a work, most carefully and methodically arranged and bound 
 up in volumes. These, bequeathed by his will to his son, ultimately to 
 revert to the College Library, it has been concluded to deposit for safe- 
 keeping in the Library, as soon as the necessary arrangements can be 
 made. 
 
20 
 
 versation in the world." The nearer you came to 
 him, the stronger the attraction of his pure and true 
 spirit. His was a somewhat reserved, restrained, 
 undemonstrative nature. He made no show ; he felt 
 often more than he expressed. Under the influence 
 of a physical depression to which he was subject, he 
 was sometimes sad and silent. But underneath, 
 there beat the tenderest heart, the kindest affec- 
 tions, the warmest generosity, ready at every call to 
 pour out its gifts. His character was built on the 
 granite base of Truth, Simplicity, Rectitude, like his 
 own Washington's. In some respects, he resembled 
 that great and good man : his own spirit was natu- 
 rally attuned to the character which he had under- 
 taken to portray, and found not only delight, but 
 added strength, and a kindred tone of thought and 
 feeling, communicated, perhaps unconsciously to him- 
 self, in the carrying on of his first great and gladly 
 chosen work. His aims from the beginning were 
 high and generous ; no low, narrow, self-indulgent 
 views tainted his heart or life. But those who knew 
 him from his youth, and knew him best, saw that 
 there was in him, beyond the common strain, some- 
 thing large and heroic, ftarly in life, he had con- 
 
 out his project; if circumstancejk*»tf»^<^of8d/'4f§ 
 would have been a Ledyard, or a Livingstone, as 
 daring, as persistent, as they. But God had other 
 work for him to do, and he has done it, we all know 
 how well, — done more than any other man among 
 
21 
 
 us for the historical Hterature of our. country : — the 
 first real, thorough student in this department, giv- 
 ing the first complete example of the fulness and 
 accuracy of res^j^ch and exploration of authentic 
 documents and accumulation of materials and per- 
 sonal preparation in many ways for the work. 
 
 "Blessed," says the Scripture, " is the memory of 
 the just " : of the just. In the narrower, as well as in 
 the larger sense, does the word apply to our honored 
 friend. He was thoroughly just, upright, conscien- 
 tious in his dealings ; fair, candid, equitable in his 
 judgments ; never willingly, never consciously, I am 
 sure, doing wrong by word or act, with pen or tongue, 
 to any man. He was transparently truthful, artless,* 
 and sincere ; with a mingled simplicity and unassum- 
 ing dignity, a blended suavity and quiet reserve, that 
 were very winning. And he was as sweet-tempered 
 as he was truthful ; as gracious and benevolent as 
 he was just; kind, cordial, tender-hearted, full of 
 mercy and good works. No one ever went to him 
 in vain for help. Perhaps he was in danger, some- 
 times, of being over-charitable, over-generous, giving 
 
 * The testimony of his classmate and life-long friend, Prof. Parsons, in 
 his tribute before the Historical Society, to the memory of their late 
 Vice-President, well expresses Xrhat alKwho knew him, felt : " I have not 
 known and I cannot imagine a man more absolutely devoid of vanity or 
 affectation. He valued the good opinion of good men, as evidence that 
 he had succeeded in his efforts to be and to do what such men approve, 
 and that what he had done for others would be acceptable and useful. 
 But in the half-century of our acquaintance, I have never witnessed 
 an act, a look, a word, which indicated even the thought of seeming 
 other than he was, — of winning even momentary approbation by mere 
 seeming." 
 
 m 
 
22 
 
 to the asker beyond the asker's claim. Many a poor 
 man, many a poor woman in this neighborhood, will 
 feel the loss of his pleasant word, his bountiful purse, 
 ever open, as in his College Presi^lcy to the young 
 men who needed, as he himself once needed, the 
 helping hand, so to all whom he had opportunity to 
 succor and serve. 
 
 Fully did he, if any man, meet the requirement 
 announced by the prophet of old, saying to his 
 people, still saying by the spirit to us all, " He hath 
 showed thee, man, what is good ; and whut doth 
 the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and 
 love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God ? " 
 
 He walked humbly with his God, as he walked 
 modestly and lovingly with man. He was truly, 
 unaffectedly devout, of a deeply reverent spirit; 
 in his views of Scripture and of Christ adhering 
 to the school of Channing and Ware ; disliking and 
 dreading the innovations and radicalism of the day, 
 as well as the false reaction in an opposite direction, 
 but ever steadfastly manifesting his profound relig- 
 iousness of mind in outward ordinances, in con- 
 stant attendance, morning and afternoon, at the 
 sanctuary, in the whole tone of his speech, in the 
 whole tenor of his life ; he was, in short, a true 
 disciple of Christ, both in love to man, and in love 
 to God. 
 
 What he was in his family,* how gentle, affec- 
 
 * Mr. Sparks was mamed on the 16th of October, 1832, to Miss Frances 
 Anne Allen of Hyde Park, New York. Her death in 1835, and subse- 
 quently that of their only child, a daughter of fine promise, at the age of 
 
•23 
 
 tionate, thoughtful, sympathizing, how devoted in 
 his parental care, how watchful for the best interests 
 of each and all, they best know who miss the hus- 
 band and the father's love. 
 
 Sadly shall we too miss him from his accustomed 
 place in this temple of the Lord. It was good to 
 see and to meet here one whom we all honored, and 
 to join with him in our Sabbath worship. And yet 
 we feel that we have no right to mourn over so 
 peaceful and happy an end, coming in the course of 
 nature, in the ripe fulness of time, to a clear mind 
 and a body not yet shattered by age. He had 
 reached the perilous, doubtful limit beyond which 
 the prospect for this life grows ever more dim ; he 
 has passed away, as he himself would have wished, 
 by a brief and gentle summons ; * his work on earth 
 was done and waited only for the Master's "Well 
 done ! " and he has fallen asleep in Christ that he may 
 awake to a brighter morn and an immortal youth. 
 " Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory 
 through our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 twelve, were among the few shadows that fell on a life otherwise pros- 
 pered and happy. He was again married, on the 21st of May, 1839, to 
 Miss Mary C. Silsbee, a daughter of Hon. Nathaniel Silsbee of Salem, a 
 wealthy and honored merchant, our Senator in Congress. Four chil- 
 dren, a son, now in College, and three daughters, survive to mourn with 
 their mother the loss of one whose domestic virtues and rare sweetness, 
 purity and simplicity of character, were the light of his favored home. 
 
 * Mr. Sparks died at his residence in Cambridge on the 14th of March, 
 after a week's illness, of pneumonia, attended with but little suffering, at 
 the age of seventy-six years and ten months. 
 
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