mained for the celestial voyager to say to the angels inviting him from the opposite bank, "Lo, I come.' Tired with official labor, he laid himself down, as usual, to recruit a little before he entered upon a service which had been announced for him. He sank into a sweet sleep, which gradually became deeper and deeper, until, when the servant announced something unusual, and the affectionate son hastened to his bedside, the spirit was just taking its flight from earth to heaven. As we stand, in thought, over that sublime scene, we can not but exclaim, 64 Servant of God, well done! Thy glorious warfare's past; The battle's fought, the race is run, This sketch of the life and labors of a distinguished missionary, however imperfect, is of some importance as to its influence on those who read it, whether professed Christians or professed worldlings. It may stimulate the one class in their aims at a higher degree of spirituality, and convince the other that religion is not a mere theory, but a system of practical holiness and self-denial. Here is a man of high culture and refined taste-the result of an education in our best colleges, both academical and medical-offering himself, with all his attainments, to a work which requires expatriation, and the endurance of great labors and sufferings, with no reward but the consciousness of discharged duty. He leaves a lucrative profession for a bare subsistence. He goes from a home adorned with all the attractions of social and religious comfort to a dwelling among brutal and disgusting heathenism. How is this to be accounted for? None of the ordinary principles which sway our common humanity are sufficient to explain it. It must be that his heart was touched by a higher principle-one in accordance with that which led Him, "who was rich, for our sakes to become poor, that we, through his poverty, might be rich." The existence of true piety alone can account for it. The spirit of benevolence and self-sacrifice was the more marked in this case, inasmuch as it was exercised in the view of a life-long exile. When missionaries left their native land then, it was expected by them and by the Churches who sent them that they were to live and die among the heathen. It was a farewell to homefinal and forever. Dr. Scudder's face was never turned toward his native land but once, and then with great reluctance; and so soon as the possibility of return was evident, he cheerfully and with ardent longing set sail again for the field of his labors. He had his desire-a desire often expressed-that he might make his grave in India. The record of such a life and of such labors, if lost to the Church and to the world, would, it seems to us, be a great loss. We need the stimulating effect of such examples. They rouse us from the self-indulgence to which we are so naturally inclined. They show us the possibility of high endeavor, and make us feel that if one Christian can exercise so much of the spirit of the Master, and tread so closely in his footsteps, why can not another-why can not we all? If Luke had not traveled with St. Paul, sharing his toils and trials-if he had not been inspired to make and transmit the record of that heroic servant of Christ, what a loss would it have been to all succeeding ages of the Church! Those writings have animated and sustained Christians in all their conflicts with their enemies, both human and Satanic. And, though we do not pretend to compare the life and labors of our humble missionary with the great apostle of the Gentiles, yet would the loss in the one case be as real, though by no means as great as in the other. As one generation passes away to be succeeded by the influx of successive ones, obliterating, like incoming waves, the landmarks which had stood as signals of hope or of danger, so the coming ranks of later Christians will have forgotten the heavenly examples which had preceded them, unless we are at some pains to give them perpetuity. Patriots and warriors have their statues of bronze or marble. Science, by the same means, secures for her votaries the homage of posterity. Why should not they who have fought so manfully the fight of faith, and set so illustrious an example of victories achieved by grace over the allurements of the world, have also their memorial, more enduring than brass or marble? They, indeed, "rest from their labors, but their works do follow them." Their name is stamped not only on the records of Christian civilization, but still deeper on souls. "brought out of darkness into God's marvelous light." Few are now living who saw Dr. Scudder at the time when he made the sublime consecration of his all to the work of missions, and those who have come on to the stage since have but a vague and shadowy idea of this devoted man, so that if, by this sketch of his life and la bors, we may fix his image on the minds of present and coming generations, we shall have done a service for which some, at least, will give us thanks. We shall save from oblivion an example not often seen even among those who profess the same faith and acknowledge the same obligations. What he was he was by the grace of God. By the same grace others may attain to a like spiritual elevation. Nay, they may reach beyond, and in their luminous flight get so near to the perfection of angels as shall lead us to cry out, with Dr. Young, "Which is the seraph-which the child of clay ?" |