Page:Memoir of Isaac Parrish, M.D. - Samuel Jackson.djvu/8

 reward of a virtuous life," says Dr. Wood, "has seldom been more happily exemplified than in the old age of this venerable couple. They lived sixty-six years together and died within a very short period of each other at a very advanced age. Their last years were cheered by the affectionate attentions of their few remaining children. They who enjoyed the familiar intimacy of Dr. Joseph Parrish, cannot but vividly remember his beautiful deportment towards his aged parents. The youngest of eleven children, he was their joy and consolation through life; in youth obedient, in manhood affectionate and attentive; when the weakness of old age came upon them, all that was tender and respectful; so that when he closed the eyes of his venerable father, he could say with sincerity, that he was not conscious of having ever offended him."

The father of our departed friend was Dr. Joseph Parrish, the affectionate and pious son, a part of whose eulogy we have just read; a man too well known to require further notice, his character being engraved in the hearts of us all. His mother was Susanna Cox, daughter of John Cox, near Burlington, New Jersey, a very respectable preacher in the society of Friends, long and extensively known as one of their leading members. Of her, it is only necessary to say, that she was in all respects worthy of such a husband. She was the mother of eleven children, nine of whom are living— all enjoying very fully the comforts of life, and the good esteem of their neighbors, as also of a very extensive and numerous acquaintance.

Such, then, were the parents and the grand-parents of Isaac Parrish; and of this ancestry, all who knew him must acknowledge he was a worthy descendant; precisely such as they, in the ardor of their hopes, could have wished him to be.

He was the second child, and was born March 19, 1811. His education was begun in the schools which were under the sole government of the Friends; and he spent several years in their well-known classical academy, where his father had imbibed the rudiments of Latin, as well as Drs. James and Wistar, Physick and Dorsey. Having attained a sufficiency of Greek and Latin, he was transferred to the private boarding-school of John Gummere, in Burlington, New Jersey, a seminary of great and deserved reputation, particularly for mathematics, astronomy, chemistry,