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Funeral Address,
BY THK
Rev.. BYRON SUNDERLAND, D. D.
May 7, 1^68.

My Friends —
It is customary, on occasions like the present, to dwell
'hiefly on the solemn event which has removed a fellow
being from the world. Less frequently does it occur that
we go back to consider the results of one's birth and arrival
upon the stage of human action, and the peculiar conjuncture
of the times in which his advent has been made — when the
great shadow of death settles down upon the dwellings of
men, and all is made dreary and desolate by the departure
of a friend — and as in this case of a husband, a father, and
a prominent citizen, we naturally seek to assuage the sorrow
of such bereavement by resorting to the only real fountain
of comfort and consolation, the promise and grace of the
Divine Spirit and t^e Divine Word. When the first fresh
distress of our new grief is upon us, we long to be assured
if it is always to continue — we feel, then, the weakness
and childishness of our nature, and we cry out for some
arm to lean upon, for some ground of hope to encourage
and cheer us on. Then it is that the sublime truths of our
beautiful and holy religion come to our aid; then it is that
the grand discoveries of the soul's immortality and of a
future state rise in the prospect with so much power to
tranquilize and console us ; then it is that we feel and know
the certainty of revealed religion, because it speaks to that
undying part within us in a voice of authority which no
falsehood can command. Here our doubts begin to be
resolved — here our fears begin to be dispelled — here we
begin to find a reality which remains unshaken amid all the
storms and troubles of this natural state. And the poor
heart, wounded and sorely crushed, is fain to cast itself,
with all its sighing and all its tears, on the bosom of that
loving Father who never wantonly afflicts or grieves the

children of men — on the great brotherhood of that Elder
Brother whose tenderness and love are more genial and
more encircling than the fondness of the purest human
love. This, indeed, we may do. It is allowable to weep
in the poignancy of our sorrow, since Jesus wept at the
grave of a friend, although He knew He was just about to
disturb the silence of that grave, and by His Almighty
power to break the seal of death which had bound the
helpless sleeper there.
And yet there is a power in humanity, assisted by the
grace of God, which can rise above every earthly grief, and
cause us to feel stronger even than all our temporal dis
tresses. Because there is a powerful intellect — a mind
which looks before and after — a spirit which reaches up to
God, and which knows in itself that it is not
All of life to live,
Nor all of death to die.
When the human faculties have been replenished and
redressed by the light and intelligence which are made so
free in the Gospel of the Son of God, then it is that all
the powers of nature receive a new accession of strength,
and then it is that our intellectual and moral culture tends
directly and strongly to establish us in all the expectations
and hopes of a glorious and unclouded future.
It is not, by any means, the least ground of our consola
tion to-day that we are well assured of the comfortable and
good estate of our departed friend. But there was some
thing in his case which constitutes for him alone a con
sideration not due to most of those who have been his
cotemporaries, and have been acting on the stage around
him. And it is to this point, as a fitting instance of the
mode of the Divine dealings with men, and of the wonder
ful ways of Providence on earth, that we now desire to

trace briefly the biography of him whose obsequies we
perform to-day.
Professor CharlSs Grafton Page, the son of Captain
Jere L. Page and Lucy D. Page, was descended on the side
of both his parents from ancestors remarkable, through many
generations, for their piety and earnest Christian faith.
He was born in Salem, Mass., on the 25th of January,
181Z, and was baptized in infancy in the old church of his
fathers, and reared amid all the sterling influences of a Puri
tan home, in the former and better sense of that now much
perverted term. The power of Christian example and a
devoted piety was always exerting upon him its influence.
His mother was, especially, a remarkable and gifted woman,
and from her, undoubtedly, descended upon him many of
the most beautiful and intellectual traits and qualities of his
mind — from her he derived the fire of genius which has
kindled one of the lights of science that will never cease to
burn. This early disposition and peculiar turn of his mind
was manifest. When a boy but ten years old he constructed
an electrical machine. We can scarcely appreciate now the
true condition of that science more than fifty years ago.
Only the very meagerest knowledge was then possessed by
the most learned and scientific men throughout the world,
and that knowledge was not yet reduced to any practical
end or purpose, and served chiefly to act as a stimulant of
curiosity, or to perform the office and entertainment of a
toy. Meanwhile the young student kept on his primary
and academic course. He was prepared for college in the
grammar school at Salem, under the charge of General
H. K. Oliver, with whom the connection thus formed
ripened into a friendship which continued with loving
warmth to the day of Professor Pace's death. After
the completion of his course at the grammar school, he

entered Harvard University in i8z8, graduating in 1832,
not yet having reached his majority. He studied at the
medical school in Boston the science of that great art by
which life is so often saved and health restored. He had
made himself thoroughly acquainted with the science and
practice of medicine as held in theory, and in fact, at that
day, and in the year 1838, he came into the State of Vir
ginia, where he pursued the practice of his profession for a
period of two years. It was during this period that he was
brought under the renewed influence of the Christian ordi
nances, and was confirmed a member of the Episcopal
Church. But his mind, so thoroughly trained by pious
parents, had years before been deeply awakened to the im
portance of religious things, and it was not now, for the
first time, that he had to investigate the grounds of his
hope or the securities of his belief in the written Revela
tion of the wisdom of God. His views were always deeply
evangelical and spiritual, and though his learning and scien
tific pursuits led him to dwell mainly upon the works and
wonders of God in nature, yet he never forgot the more
home and heart-work of those gentle and spiritual influ
ences which are shed upon the humble, repentant and
believing soul. In the year 1840, he was called to a posi
tion of trust and responsibility in the capacity of Examiner
in the Patent-Office, under the Government of the United
States, at a time when there were but two Examiners instead
of the twenty of whom the examining corps is now com
posed, and this position, since that date, he occupied with
some brief exceptional periods until the day of his decease.
From a very early day he was a contributor to the various
literary and scientific periodicals ; among which was more
prominently "Silliman's Journal" — and even withinthe last
two weeks, though outwardly so enfeebled and exhausted.

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he has prepared an article in reply to inquiries made of him
in his correspondence, with reference to the series of re
markable experiments made by him in 1850 and 1851, in
demonstration of the practicability of employing electro-
magnetism as a motive power, which will appear in the
pages of the " Scientific American " only after the hand that
penned it shall be lying cold in the composure of the
sepulchre. And within the last four or six months he has
written and caused to be published one of the most concise,
full, and elaborate treatises upon the subject of electrical
science and discovery which has yet appeared. His cor
respondence with scientific and learned men, not only in
this, but other countries, has been extended over many
years, and has become, indeed, voluminous. But his great
achievements, which have been so recently and honorably
acknowledged in the Congress of the United States, were
accomplished in regard to the nature and applicability
of the electric fluid in the practical purpose of life. It
is now proved and admitted that, as much, if not more
anv other man either on this or the other side of the
Atlantic, he has furnished the clue which, in the hands
of others, has at last spanned the broad ocean, and made
one great whispering gallery of all the continents of the
world. This is truly a glorious triumph and a lasting
fame. It is not a little ground of satisfaction that he
lived to see his claim acknowledged, and to prove the fact
that nations are not always ungrateful to their most distin
guished benefactors.
But why should I attempt, in this place, to complete the
portraitufe of such a life and of services so great to the cause
of science, humanity, and religion itself. Other pens will
record, in more adequate and fitting modes, the character and
life of this philosopher and sage. It is for us to meditate

upon the ways of Providence by which men and things
are chosen and raised up to carry out and accomplish the
wondrous designs of Heaven. In 1812, the year of the
birth of our now lamented friend, the world was in a con
dition which prophecy had marked for the development of
some great advanced stage of intellectual, national, and relig
ious elevation. The history of those days discloses the fact
that about that period began a new series of events in civil
polities, in science, in religious missions ; and this series of
events has been in progress, till now we behold the unfold
ing of some of the most wonderful spectacles in human
history, and some of the most amazing triumphs of human
art. How strange and how impressive is the thought that
a lad ten years of age, in the town of Salem, Mass., with
his first rough electrical machine, was beginning that course
ot scientific discovery which has contributed essentially to
the vast and overpowering results which we now see before
us. So God raises up his instruments, and so He commis
sions His servants, and when they have done their work He
recalls them to Himself. Professor Page was married to
Miss Priscilla S. Webster in 1843, and has left his wife,
three sons and two daughters, who survive, while he, him
self, has been summoned to join two infant sons, that years
ago were taken from them, and that beautiful and lovely
spirit — -their eldest daughter, Mrs. Emelyn W. Bailey,
who departed this life not quite one year ago. Strange
indeed have been the vicissitudes of this family circle in
one short twelvemonth. It was but just fourteen moons
ago that, on this very day, we were called to share in
the joys of the nuptial ceremony with that fair child.
Alas! how soon did illness come and smite them down
again and again with a fourfold stroke, until at last Death
could not be satisfied till she, the fondly cherished, was

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offered on his altar. God has spared the others to
continue unto this day, but I cannot forbear the thought
that on him whose head now lies so low before us, this
storm-burst of sorrow fell but too heavily, and that it
planted in that loving heart a pang which has powerfully
tended to cause it to cease to beat.
But the sources of that disease which has finally over
come him were already opened. An intensity of brain-
work, as well, doubtless, as the effect of chemical substances
upon the physical man, and with which his experiments'
compelled him to have so much to do, continued to produce,
with other causes, a strange pressure and disability upon
the head, which, though in a measure checked by tempo
rary repose from labor, was nevertheless ready to reassert
its power in another form, and which, for the last six
months, and often attended by severe pain, settled upon the
throat and bronchial parts, and wholly deprived him of the
power to speak aloud. During this closing period of his
life, however, as his physical sufi^ering and disability have
been increasing, nothing could be more sweet or touching
than' the shining out of his beautiful Christian character
and confidence in God. While the outward man has been
perishing, the inward man appears to have been renewed
day by day. Always, by instinct, filled with a sense of
the appropriate and beautiful — always cunning of hand and
subtle in device, no flowers or birds, or any other favorite
of human nature flourished more prosperously than his.
He seemed to have a direct sympathy with everything in
nature, by which it knew him for a kindred spirit and
acknowledged his kinship and command. And this was
not lost from among his powers in the last months and
days. He had a smile for all. His eager spirit quickened
on every topic of his chosen life-pursuits, and above all he

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recognized the sublime truths of the Gospel as the only
sufficient and satisfactory solution of all our science and all
our experience. About two months since, desiring to die
in full membership and communion with the church of his
family, he was, on profession, received into the fellowship
and communion of our church, and the associations of that
most affecting occasion will long continue in the memory
of those who shared in its solemn rites. Always mindful
of our nature's infirmities, and always penetrated with the
humility as well as the child-like confidence of a Christian,
it was but a few days since that, unable to give utterance in
audible tones to the testimony he would leave behind him,
he wrote out the following words, which are so true, so
evangelical, and so Scriptural in sentiment that I shall be
permitted to recite them here : " My life," he says, "has
been very unsatisfactory to me — I have neglected and
abused many privileges, but God will forgive all — and my
sins be remembered only to praise Him for His infinite
mercy. He has followed me with loving kindness all my
days." Oh how different is such a sentiment from the prOud and
atheistic spirit of too many of our scientific men who, in
professing to become wise, are really changed into fools,
denying the God that has made them, or despising the au
thority and will of Him in whose hand is their very breath.
To no such spirit did he ever give countenance or way.
Although severely tried, and suffering much in his last ill
ness, yet no word of insubmission, no sign of impatience
escaped him. Sweet and loving, and tender to the last,
while the days waxed and waned, and his mortal strength
was diminishing, he appears to have had some warning —
some whispering of angels, telling him that the time had
come; for on the morning of the day of his decease he had

the members of his family approach his bed-side and, de
prived of the usual expression of the lips, he spoke to each
of. them his last loving adieu, in that language which we
may suppose the angels use when they are intent to tell
some thrilling story of God's works and ways — the lan
guage of a smile which lighted up all the wasted features of
the dying body, like the glory of a sunset reflected upon
the windows of some ancient deserted castle. And when
this was done, all with him was done. In a few moments,
at about one o'clock on Tuesday, the 5th of May, 1868,
his breathing grew low and gentle, and before it was known
almost to the watchers by his couch, that mystery and
stillness had come on, which no mortal power can penetrate, ,
and which will never again be broken, until the trurnpet of
the archangel shall waken it. Oh how deep the msytery
and the stillness of death — here now — in a moment gone,
past all human recall forever !
Can anything be added for the soothing of our sorrow
when we feel so great a loss? Can anything be said to
comfort these bereaved and stricken ones ? Perhaps not to
deprive them of their sense of desolation they must needs
feel in parting with their friend — perhaps it were not best
in this manner, if we could, to staunch the bleeding wounds
of the heart's affections. This suffering of ours is per
mitted, in the infinite wisdom and mercy of Him who does
not forget our infirmities, and who has declared that He
will not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking
flax. And being so permitted, we may be sure there is
some gracious design yet to be discovered. The cloud that
gathers its blackness, surcharged with fury, over any portion
of the earth, when pierced by the spears of the tempest, has
been found to discharge only the elements of refreshment
and restoration upon the thirsty earth. And why may not
the same great process take place in the moral and spiritual

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world. If the sweet flowers are born of such a parentage
as the wild storms and cloudy days of heaven, why may
not a purer and holier hope blossom over the griefs and
sorrows which these woes of time produce .'
Surely I am not speaking to those, nor for those, who
are uninstructed in the great doctrines of our common
Christianity. We believe in the atonement of the Son of
God; we believe in a future state of being ; we believe in
the immortality of the soul; we believe in the resurrection
and eternal life. While, then, we shall go forward with the
solemn scene of burial, and shall compose this sleeping clay
in its last slumber and final resting place, let us not yield up
our Christian confidence to the misgivings of unbelief, or to
the upbraidings of complaint; but meekly, with pious resig
nation, let us. bow to the Divine behest ; assured that all
things shall work together for the good of those who lov«
God, and that nothing shall be able to separate us from the
love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The soul that has left this earthly abode, and gone forth
from this fleshy tabernacle, is now unfettered, free to
expatiate, as never it did before, among the wonders of
-that creation which God has fitted up for His children, and
to pour the tribute of its gratitude into the ears of Him
who loved us and gave Himself for us, and hath washed us
in His own blood to present us without spot or .wrinkle, or
any such thing, before the throne of His Father with ex-'
ceeding joy.
O may we so live, and so may we die ! It is Christ in
the one and gain in the other. O ye spirits of the
departed, who have entered into glory and await our coming,
it is not for you that we mourn, for ye are at rest forever !
If we mourn, it is alone for ourselves and for the hazards
of the way that must yet be on our part. May God grant
that none of us, for any reason, fail of this great salvation I