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| ISAAC T. HOPPER. 745 see him now with our mind's eye, but with the eye of flesh we shall see him no more. Void of intentional offence to God or man, his spirit Las joined its happv kiudred iu a world where there is neither sorrow nor perplexity.' " I sent the following communication to ' The New York Tribune ': " In this world of shadows, few tbiugs strengthen the soul like seeing the calm and cheerful exit of a truly good man; and this has been my privilege by the bedside of Isaac T. Hopper. " He was a man of remarkable endowments, both of head and heart. His clear discrimination, his unconquerable will, his total unconsciousness of fear, his extraordinary tact in circumventing plans he wished to frustrate, would have made him illustrious as the general of an army ; and these qualities might have become faults, if they had not been balanced by an unusual degree of conscientiousness and benevolence. He battled courageously, not from ambition, but from an inborn love of truth. He circumvented as adroitly as the most practiced politician ; but it was always to defeat the plans of tliose who oppressed God's poor; never to advance his o\vu self-interest. "' Few men have been more strongly attached to any religious society than he was to the Society of Friends, which he joined in the days of its purity, impelled by his own religious convictions. But when the time came that he must either be faithless to duty in the cause of his enslaved brethren, or part company with the Society to which he was bound by the strong and sacred ties of early religious feeling, this sacrifice he also calmly laid on the altar of humanity. " ' During nine years that I lived in his household, my respect and affection for him continually increased. Never have I seen a man who so completely fulfilled the Scripture injunction, to forgive an erring brother, 'not only seven times, but seventy times seven.' I have witnessed relapse after relapse into vice, under circumstances which seemed like the most heartless ingratitude to him; but he joyfully hailed the first symptom of repentance, and was always ready to grant a new probation. '•' Farewell, thou bravo and kind old Friend ! The prayers of ransomed ones ascended to Heaven for thee, and a glorious company have welcomed thee to the Eternal City.' " |