"His life was brief, but crowded; fuller of labors than of days.
"Alas, the powerful and indefatigable laborer, the philosopher, the thinker, the poet, the man of genius, lived among us the life of storms, of struggles, of quarrels, of combats, common in all times to all great men. Today, behold him here at peace. He leaves collisions and hostilities. The same day he enters on glory and the tomb. Henceforth he will shine above all the clouds over our heads, among the stars of our country.
"And you all who are here, are you not tempted to envy him?
"Gentlemen, whatever be our sorrow in the presence of such a loss, let us resign ourselves to these catastrophes. Let us accept them in their poignancy and severity. It is good perhaps, and necessary, in an epoch like ours, that from time to time a great death should communicate a religious book to minds devoured by doubt and skepticism. Providence knows what it does when it thus puts a whole people face to face with the supreme mystery, and gives it Death to meditate upon, which is at once the great equality and the great liberty.
"Providence knows what it does, for here is the highest of instructions. There can be in all hearts only austere and serious thoughts when a sublime spirit majestically makes its entrance upon the other life; when one of those beings whom the visible wings of genius have long sustained above the crowd, suddenly puts forth those other wings that we cannot see, and disappears in the unknown!
"No, it is not the unknown! No, I have already said it on another mournful occasion, and I shall not weary in repeating it, it is not darkness, it is light! It is not the end, it is the beginning! It is not nothing, it is eternity! Is not this true, I ask all that hear me? Such graves as this are proofs of immortality. In the presence of the illustrious dead we feel more distinctly the divine destinies of this intelligence called man, which traverses the earth to suffer and to be purified; and we know that those who have shone with genius during life, must be living souls after death."
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DR. GUTZLAFF, THE MISSIONARY.
CHARLES GUTZLAFF the famous missionary in China is described in the Grenzboten by a writer who lately heard him preach at Vienna, as a short, stout man, with a deep red face, a large mouth, sleepy eyes, pointed inward and downward like those of a China man, vehement gesticulations, and a voice more loud than melodious. He has acquired in his features and expression something like the expression of the people among whom he lives. His whole manners also, as well as his face, indicate the genuine son of Jao and Chun, so that the Chinese when they encounter him in the street salute him as their countryman. We translate for The International the following sketch of his life and labors:
Charles Gutzlaff was born in 1803, at Pyritz, a village of Pomerania. His zeal as an apostle was first manifested some fifteen years ago. He married an English woman, who was animated with the same aspiration as himself and who accompanied him on his voyages as a missionary. His extensive acquaintance with the Chinese and kindred languages even then made deep impression on Robert Morrison, the founder of the Evangelical Mission in China, whom he joined in 1831 at Macao, and caused his Acquaintance to be much sought by the merchants. In 1832 and 1833 he was employed as an interpreter on board ships engaged in smuggling opium, but turned this occupation, which in itself was not of a very saintly character, to his religious ends, by the dissemination of tracts and Bibles. A missionary journey to Japan which he undertook in 1837 was without any result. After Morrison's death Gutzlaff was appointed Chinese Secretary to the British Consulate at Canton, and in 1840 founded a Christian Union of Chinese for the propagation of the Gospel among their countrymen. His present journey through Europe has a similar purpose, the foundation of Missionary Societies for the spread of Christianity in China.