Page:A Life of Matthew Fontaine Maury.pdf/337

Rh the whole scheme fell to the ground and was forgotten. Twelve years afterwards a leading Southern journal said:—

"The value of Maury's services is incalculable, and that the Government has forgotten him gives all the more reason that the South should protect his memory and strive to perpetuate his fame.

"He was the greatest teacher that ever gave his talents to her service, and he gave up the surroundings and the work of his life to enter it. He has been dead now nearly twelve years, and yet no memorial marks his career and shows that of his stamp and kind are the men the South delights to honour."



By the grace and mercy of my blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, I, Matthew Fontaine Maury, being of sound mind and healthful body, do make this my last Will and Testament.

Should I fall in the war in which my country is now, in this month of February 1862, unhappily engaged, I wish no efforts to be made by my family to recover my body. A sailor's or a soldier's burial is all, in such a case, that I desire at the hands of men. But I pray the Lord to have mercy on my soul, beseeching my Redeemer from this day to the last to strengthen my hands to fight, and to deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living.

Should it please my Heavenly Father to let mo die in the bosom of my family, then a pine coffin, a plain funeral, and u simple burial, with an evergreen to mark the spot, will constitute the burial, the tomb and the epitaph, that under the circumstances, are most grateful to me. But whether I die in peace, surrounded by family and friends, or whether I fall in battle, I hope my wife and children will not grieve because I am gone before, but that they will be comforted, and abstain from the outward signs of mourning.

After my death, I wish the expenses of my burial and all my debts to be paid. The remaining portion of my possessions,