"It will be a long time before we shall get accustomed, in our associations and conventions, to the absence of that venerable form, those gray hairs, and that voice of wisdom, and gentleness, and love, which came like oil on the troubled waters of debate, and drew out the entangled threads of thought, and by quaint queries, by questions which answered themselves, questions plainer than most men's answers, penetrated to the heart of every subject, and showed us, as by a flash of light, the exact point where the truth lay. We shall often desire in our councils his presence, his clear thought, his persuasive language, his gentleness of manner, and his conclusive logic."
Mr. Ballou had a most remarkable faculty of seeing through any abstruse question or subject that came up for discussion before any body with which he was sitting in fellowship, and could at once seem to set all right in their midst, by a few shrewdly-uttered words. Another brother has said of him in this respect:
"It was wonderful how he would put the needle in amid the tangled skein of reasonings, in a debate, and untie the knot just where the whole might be wound off without any difficulty; and how he would hold to the essential point in an important discussion, and dissipate every obscuration that threatened to darken and eclipse it, was astonishing, and showed where his power as a master reasoner lay. Such was the man."
We must now turn from these desultory remarks and references, to describe the end of his earthly mission.
CHAPTER XV.
END OF HIS EARTHLY MISSION.
How shall we speak of the close of that life which we have so feebly succeeded in portraying,—how depict the sunset of his soul upon earth,—how describe the unfeigned and unbounded sympathy and mourning of a whole denomination,—how refer to the appropriate ceremonies—the funeral obsequies—that were so beautifully and tenderly performed by the society over whom he had so long held such heart-sway, and whom he loved better than all else on earth, save his family? How shall our feeble pen portray these striking and long to be remembered scenes? Throughout this entire subject we have written tremblingly, and with a full realizing sense of the magnitude of the theme, and the humble ability of our pen. But here we feel our hand indeed too feeble, our sensibilities too acute, and shall call to our aid stronger minds and abler pens.
In no more appropriate place than here can we refer to his parting with the loved companion of his bosom. His wife had been confined to her chamber for some weeks, by severe indisposition, just previous to his own last illness, nor was she able to leave it until some time after the last obsequies in honor to his memory. On the morning that Mr. Ballou was taken ill, he came to her from his own dressing-room, kissed her tenderly, and bade her adieu, with all the gentle and affectionate solicitude with which a young husband might have left his bride; and, passing down stairs to the parlor, was preparing to depart for the scene of the convention at Plymouth, when he was suddenly taken in a fainting fit. A couch was immediately removed to the room where he was taken so suddenly ill, and he was not removed from it until he fell quietly asleep in death. Little did the fond wife and companion of his bosom think, when he bade her thus farewell, that it was for the last time;—that it was the last time she should ever behold, on this earth, that countenance that had never been turned upon her save in love and tenderness,—that noble brow that had been her pride and glory in its sublime truthfulness and purity of expression,—those eloquent lips that had been such a well-spring of heavenly truths! But such it was. Herself too ill to be removed from her chamber, she never saw him afterwards; and she still cherishes his memory as associated with that fond and endearing look that accompanied his last kiss and farewell!