Page:Fourteen sonnets and poems.djvu/19

 him for his great heart, his unselfishness, his sincerity, and his simplicity. He was the most popular of teachers, and his pupils, scattered through the West, realize that life has been made richer and fuller to them through his instructions. "Capacity for pain" is not unfrequently "a mark of rank in nature." It is not possible for one to speak nobly who does not feel profoundly, and nature has so blended suffering with power, that it sometimes has the relation of cause to effect. While Mr. Hazzen thrilled to the joyousness of nature, with a soul attuned to its subtlest harmonies, he was often smitten with sore pain as he looked out on the conflict of life, its incompleteness and unrest. But he was never morbid, and wrote and talked only the highest philosophy and the divinest optimism.

It seems strange that one who was so vigorous physically, and who was endowed with such spiritual strength, should have fallen on the march so early. But he put so much of himself into his work, and spent his vital force so prodigally in the attainment or his purposes, that he bankrupted himself of nervous force when he should have been at his best. It was a slow decline at first, concerning which no one felt anxious. "A few weeks' rest will bring him up again!" was the general prophecy. But recuperation did not follow the rest of vacation. The weary months went by, and it became apparent that the Lord had