Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 10.djvu/14

 yohyi Rand.

��the rooms he was able to preserve a home, and while he could labor, pro- cured a comfortable support. In his last years he was compelled to learn that bitter lesson which so many dis- tinffuished artists and inventors had learned before him, that the inher- itance of poverty is too often the re- ward of genius.

Mr. Rand possessed marked pecu- liarities. As a man he was truly re- markable. He stood nearly or quite six feet and four inches in height, erect and well formed, presenting a physique which would demand atten- tion in a passing crowd. There was a self-poise about him, which, while it was not haughty, was truly digni- fied and noble.

Although he entered upon life at a period when stimulants were common, and when all classes indulged to some extent, and too many very freely, yet he, alike in youth and manhood, in prosperity and adversity, stood firm as a temperate man. No moral taint ever attached to liis character. He might have contracted debts which he was unable to pay, still his intention was truly honest, and his life Avas virtuous.

The parents of Mr. Rand were de- voted Christians, members of the Baptist church. Like Zacharias and Elizabeth of old, they walked in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. At such an altar of daily prayer John Rand, in his childhood, received his first religious impressions. From these for a brief period his mind swung off into more liberal views ; but with the soberness of increasing years, and a more care- ful study of the Word of God, he re- turned, not only by conviction but

��by a deeper heart experience, to the faith of those who taught his infant lips the prayer, "God be merciful to me a sinner." In this faith he con- tinued through all his wanderings by land and sea, and through all the vicissitudes of his Ions; and eventful life ; nor can we doubt that from the Saviour thus revealed his soul drew consolation when turning from the fading scenes of earth to the realities of eternity.

Mr. Rand married Miss Lavinia Braiuerd, of Vermont. They first met in Charleston, South Carolina, where she was the principal of a young ladies' school. Although some eight years his senior, they were very con- genial, having the same literary tastes,' the same views on religious subjects, while neither of them seemed to pos- sess the talent of accumulating prop- erty. She was a relative of Rev. David Brainerd, the distinguished missionary to the Indians. Very soon after their marriage they sailed for Europe, and she suffered so se- verely with sea-si(!kness and exhaus- tion that her life was despaired of. Once safely on the other side of the ocean, she felt that she could never return, and they determined to make London their home. For a time they lived in a very quiet way. Always interested to speak on religious sub- jects, she one day mentioned to a near acquaintance her interest in for- eign missions, and spoke of her rel- ative Brainerd. This led to an intro- duction to the morganatic wife of the Duke of Sussex, the charming woman whom Queen Victoria created Duchess of Inverness. She became very much attached to Mrs. Rand, and persuaded the duke to sit for his portrait to Mr.

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