another effort to rally—he went again to New York, and repeatedly sailed to Staten Island, with the hope that the sea-breeze might prove healthful and invigorating. From exposure, however, he took cold, and he was confined to the house for some days with inflammation of the lungs, from which he so far recovered as to return home, only to remain a prisoner on his couch in the study. He dressed himself daily, as usual, and came to his meals; but no medicine had any effect upon the chills and fever, the familiar enemy which held him in its grasp. He sometimes strolled on the piazza, and made bows and arrows for the little Henry, the unfolding of whose powers of body and mind he watched with the most lively interest. One day he ventured to hope that the disease was mastered. A long interval had passed without a chill; he felt better and brighter than he had done since the beginning Olin, D.D., L.L.D., late president of the Wesleyan University, who was a member elect to this General Conference, from the New York East Conference; therefore, "Resolved, That while we desire to bow with humble submission to this dispensation of the Divine hand, we unfeignedly mourn the departure of one who, by his soundness of faith, purity of life, comprehensiveness of intellect, and extensive learning, was so well qualified to be a light and a guide in our Israel; but while we regret that we can not enjoy the benefit of his counsel in this General Conference, and that the Church militant is deprived of his eminently useful labors, we rejoice in the satisfactory assurance that he has left the Church on earth to be united to the Church in heaven, and that in life and death he had made manifest the power and excellency of redeeming grace." Resolutions similar to this in tone were passed by the students and by the alumni of the Wesleyan University, by the Board of Managers of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Church, by the Genesee Conference, by the Preachers' Meeting in New York, and by the Bedford Street Church. of his illness. He drove out with his wife to Middlefield, and at an antiquated place, called, in his family parlance, the Ancient Neighborhood, he got out of the carriage to cut some cedar branches for bows for his little boy. He said that it would please the little fellow to know that he had been thought of during the drive. The balmy air seemed to give him new life. His spirits rose, and he indulged hopes that he was now to be restored to health and activity-hopes which he had not known for several months, and which made that drive truly delightful. It was his last happy drive. Two or three times he drove out subsequently, but as an invalid in the carriage of his physician. That night, with periodic certainty, the chill camethe enemy was still in the strong-hold. On Tuesday, July 22d, an early Southern friend, into whose family he had been most cordially received when he first went to the South, and whom he had not seen for seventeen years, came with her husband to see him, having taken a journey of seventy miles for that purpose. This visit was a great gratification to him. It brought up most vividly remembrances of the scenes and the friends of his early manhood. He heard, too, with deep emotion, the declaration of his friend, made to Mrs. Olin, that to him she owed more than to any man living, for that through his instrumentality she had been brought to the knowledge of the truth. He remembered speaking plainly and earnestly to her about the great interests of her soul, but he did not know that his words had had any agency in leading her to the determination to live for Christ. The next Saturday James Lynch, the dear little two years' old boy, who had been sporting round in all the joyousness of health, pleased with the visit of this lady, was taken ill with the dysentery, then an epidemic in the place. On the Friday after, at one o'clock in the morning, he died. During that sorrowful week, as Dr. Olin lay, feeble and lonely on the couch in the study, which was under the room occupied by the patient little sufferer, he went through all the pangs of the impending separation. The pattering of the little feet, so ready to run to the study-the lessons of cheerful obedience just learned, the daily invitation to dinner, and the little triumph of leading his father into the dining-room-the bright little face, the large, deep blue eyes, with that peculiar inward look-all the winning charms of this treasure lent had been present with him in those solitary hours. On Thursday afternoon he was called up to take leave of the little one, whose last lisping words were those of prayer and love. The father, who was suffering with the pain of the same disease, was completely overcome with those farewell words. It seemed to him, as he afterward said, as if the spiritual was already shining out and asserting its power, as the earthly part was fading away; and when asked to look upon the lovely little marble image ere it was buried out of his sight, he said no; he wished ever to retain the remembrance of that "Good-by, papa"-that was his child's farewell. But it was when they came to take away his child and bury him that the fountains of the great deep of his heart were broken up, and his emotion became so uncontrollable that it alarmed those who stood beside him. The funeral services began, and the Rev. CHAPTER XII. REMINISCENCES OF STUDENTS. "WE do not hesitate," says Dr. Wightman, " to express our conviction that, with the pre-eminent qualifications he possessed for influencing young men, for wielding aright the potent instrumentalities belonging to the professor's chair, aided by the power which gave his sermons a baptism of fire, when occasionally he was able to preach, Dr. Olin did more for the Church than if he had even worn the mitre. We never knew a professor or president half so idolized by his students, one half so fitted to impress the great lineaments of his own character on the susceptible minds of young men, or so qualified to bring the vital spirit of religion into all the agencies and appliances of education. His work was marked out by Providence; he was sustained in it until the mission of his life closed. Posterity will regard him as a great leader in the educational enterprises of the religious body with which he identified himself, when there were scarcely half a dozen regularly educated men in the ministry, and no institution of learning of high grade to be found in the whole connection." A meet introduction are these words to this chapter, which aims to present Dr. Olin's character as it was stamped upon the minds and memories of young men for whose well-being he ever felt a lively and unfailing solicitude. He may be thus seen from a new standpoint, and probably the most favorable position for obtaining a proper estimate of his qualifications as a guide and governor of youth. "At every thought of him," says one, "I thank God more fervently for the human soul and for immortality." Says another: He was a father among us, and equally did he command respect, inspire awe, and win affection. How well could he encourage the ambition and enthusiasm of youth without approving its follies and indiscretions. The sincere and generous manner in which he bestowed praise, and the faithfulness with which he administered cogent, scorching admonition, both publicly and privately, were matters of universal remark. Of his piety I ought perhaps to say nothing; but an incident occurs to my mind worthy, I think, of mention, giving as it does a brief but instructive glimpse of this man of prayer. It was told me by one of the students who were accustomed to attend the class-meetings held at the presi dent's house. During these seasons of hallowed interest, not soon to be forgotten, he has been heard praying with fervent though subdued voice in his study, imploring, no doubt, the blessings of Heaven upon the class, and upon the institution which enlisted so much of his labor and his love. His discourses gave me a new idea of the power of eloquence and the mission of the orator. My attention was once directed to some stanzas from Mrs. Browning's Vision of Poets, as giving a striking likeness of the doctor preaching, especially when much animated: "His eyes were dreadful, for you saw "They could enunciate, and refrain And his brow's height was sovereign." A young minister of the New York Conference, while still a student in the New York University, spent a summer in Middletown for the benefit of his health, and occasionally saw Dr. Olin in his own house. In |