Page:In Memoriam. Matthew Fontaine Maury.djvu/22

 surrounded. For myself, I am free to confess that for many years I commanded a ship, and although never insensible to the beauties of nature upon the sea or land, I yet feel that until I took up your work, I had been traversing the ocean blindfolded. I did not think, I did not know, the amazing and beautiful combination of all the works of Him whom you so beautifully term the 'Great First Thought.' I feel that, aside from any pecuniary profit to myself from your labors, you have done me good as a man. You have taught me to look above, around, and beneath me, and to recognize God's hand in every element by which I am surrounded. I am gratified for this personal benefit."

After this succinct but comprehensive summary of the most important events of his life, it only remains to place upon these pages a record of the circumstances of his last illness, and of a death as instructive in its teaching as his life was noble in its example.

During the past summer he received an invitation to address an Agricultural Society of Massachusetts. This invitation he accepted, and leaving the Institute on the 12th of September, addressed the Society at the village of Norfolk, near Boston. Returning to New York,