Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 1.djvu/462

 the Bedford Infirmary was actually opened as a general hospital.

Thus all his projects were realised, and though it pleased Heaven to remove him at an early age, when the matured perfection of his powers held out the promise of a long career of active usefulness, he could bend in meek submission to the fiat of his Maker, with the soothing consciousness of not having lived in vain. With a singular felicity, such as few such extensive projectors attain, he lived to complete, within a few brief years, every design which his benevolent heart had planned, and, as if through the special mercy of his God, he was not withdrawn until all his humane designs were fully consummated.

That he was withdrawn, was a source of deep and extensive sorrow, such as is rarely excited by the death of any individual, however eminent. It was not the outward show of mourning that was displayed, a tribute too often paid with little real feeling to supposed worth or imputed virtues, where both are taken on trust. It was the sorrow of the heart that pervaded both rich and poor, when Dr. Thackeray closed his earthly career. To all had he been endeared by those qualities which, issuing from the heart, find a responding feeling in every bosom. Callous, indeed, must that heart be which the sterling worth and overflowing benevolence of Dr. Thackeray would not have softened. And as human nature is ever true to the principles with which the great Creator has endued it; as worth pays to worth ever the tribute of its esteem. Dr. Thackeray did find amongst mankind those sympathies which he most prized. As one of his intimate friends expressed