accepted,
and the latter forgiven, for His sake who shed it. For He who made us
knoweth whereof we are made; He remembereth that we are dust; He seeth
not as man seeth. Only He knows all the secrets of the weak, trembling
heart, its temptations, its trials, its struggles, its sorrows, its
triumphs, its despairs. Our friend was a captain in Israel. He hath
fallen with his armor on, and girded for the battle. He loved the
suffering Church. Be that a remembrance to rise like a sweet-smelling
incense before the congregation; and if Thou, whose pure eyes cannot
behold iniquity, wilt not be extreme to mark what is done amiss,
neither may we, the work of thy hands, dare to assume Thy prerogative;
but as the sons of sinning Noah, with averted eyes, covered the
nakedness of their father with their garments, so will we hide in
forgetfulness each short-coming and each transgression."

As the good man, with a swelling heart and sad eyes, in which
glittered the sacred drops of human feeling, uttered these words, he
looked like a pitying angel from whose lips reproach could not fall,
and whose blessed office was only to instruct and to forgive.

The death of one as important as the Assistant Spikeman could not but
be sensibly felt in so small a community. He had been a man whose
daring nature would not allow him to be at rest, and who was never
contented, except in the exercise of all his faculties. Hence he had
been not only active and scheming in private life, but also busy and
bold in public, driven forward, as it were, by a sort of inborn
necessity. Though not deeply regretted, he yet was missed. Those whom
his adventurous spirit employed in the fisheries, and the
just-commencing fur trade, missed him; his brethren of the
congregation, wherein his voice, to the edification of his hearers,
had often been lifted up in the "gift of prophecying," missed him; and
his coadjutors in the government, to whom in more than one instance
his keen natural sagacity had been a guide, and his zeal a stimulus
and support, missed him; but it was only for a short time. How often
has it been remarked, that few things are as capable of making us feel
our insignificance, as the shortness of time in which we are
forgotten. Active, prominent, influential as he had been, Spikeman was
soon remembered only as yesterday is remembered. There were no loves
twining around his memory, reaching beyond the grave, and bringing him
back to earth; no tender recolle