"The letter fails and systems fall,
And every symbol wanes;
The Spirit overbrooding all
Eternal Love remains."
With prophetic eye he perceived also that "the individualism of the middle of the nineteenth century" was soon to belong to the past, and that unity and co-operation were to prevail over competition and independency. Yet to suppose John Chambers was ever a sectarian would be to misjudge him wholly. His very life breathed out the prayer:
"O Lord and Master of us all!
Whate'er our name or sign,
We own thy sway, we hear thy call,
We test our lives by thine."
During the last decade of his life Dr. Chambers withdrew somewhat from public speaking outside of his own pulpit. About four years before his death came a stroke of paralysis which somewhat weakened him. His physician was the celebrated specialist and author who, like Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, has enriched both science and literature. Dr. S. Weir Mitchell. The patient was particularly touched by the tender solicitude of his Quaker friends, whose meeting house on Twelfth street was just across from his home. On recovery he sent out to his host of enquiring friends a circular containing his thanks in print as follows: