Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/594

 and surgeon of the hospital and of the dispensary; almost all the lecturers and pupils of the medical school of Birmingham; many of the practitioners from surrounding towns, and a great number of the principal inhabitants, followed the procession, through crowded and silent streets, to the grave. The funeral service of the church, which none can hear at any time quite unaffected, was read with impressive solemnity by the Rev. Mr. Hook, whose well-known regard for him for whom he performed that last office of friendship, added to its deep effect on this most sad occasion.

When a mind so remarkable for its well-directed activity as that which animated the frame of him of whom I have traced these mournful recollections, is thus suddenly extinguished in the insensibility of death, and all the hopes it had conceived are lost, and all the cares, and alike the aspirations, of which it was conscious, have ended in results so unfinished, like the fragments of some broken design; the first unavoidable impression, made by such an instance, is, that it constitutes a bitter and disheartening commentary on the ardour, the industry, the self-denial of early years; and even on the virtuous exertions of manhood. Left, we know not why, to act a few years longer in a scene from which one whom we loved has, all at once, disappeared, we look around for some explanation; and, finding none, exclaim that man is altogether vanity. Failing to comprehend a destiny so incomplete and inscrutable, we anxiously desire some assurance, stronger than our trust, that the moral improvement of those departed,