up to near the time of his death. When partially recovered from a stroke of paralysis, which destroyed the use of his right hand, he learned to write with his left that he might continue his work.

Leander inherited much of his father's thirst for knowledge and love for teaching. He was at an early age fitted for college through instruction at home and in the public schools. He entered the university at Ann Arbor and passed through the Freshman year. Early in his sophomore year his father concluded to send him to the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, Ohio, where he graduated in the class of 1867 at the age of nineteen-the youngest member of the class.

I well remember his first entrance into the college. The students were all seated in chapel waiting for the president to conduct the services. Presently he entered the room, followed by a venerable looking gentleman, accompanied by a slender youth, who seemed intensely interested in the scene before him. The father and

were introduced to the professors, and the boy was given a seat on the platform during prayers. After chapel services he was introduced to members of our class, and by his amiability, abundant good nature, fondness for sport, as well as evident literary abilities, at once won a prominent place in the class. His previous careful training made him excel especially in Greek and mathematics.

After graduation he entered the public schools in Michigan; the first year as principal of the high school in Pontiac, the second as superintendent of the public schools.

He was converted while in college, and near the close of his senior year became convinced that his future work was to preach the Gospel, thongh this decision was not generally made known, most of his associates thinking he had not changed his previous purpose to study medicine.

In 1869 he entered Union Theological Seminary in New York, but before he was able to complete his course he yielded to the urgent call of the Church for missionary recruits for China. The fact that one of his class-mates was already on the field, and another was appointed to come at the same time with himself, influenced the choice of the field of his future labors.

He reached Peking 20th October, 1870, and entered with enthusiasm and success upon the study of the language, which he acquired with unusual facility and accuracy. He was eager to enter into work, and when he had been here only three months went with me into the country. Although his vocabulary was necessarily limited he engaged heartily in selling books, and I remember his determination and persistency that every shop in the

villages through which we passed should at least know something of the books we carried and have the opportunity to secure them. Two months later, with the agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society, he made another trip of a month's duration through the Western portion of this province to Huai-lou. Concerning this trip he made the following entry in the mission history: "We travelled about 1500 li, visited the cities of Paoting Fu, Ching-ting Fu, Yi chow, Ting-chow and Cho-chou and fifteen hsien cities, besides many market towns and villages, in every one of which we left copies of the Word of God with all who showed an appreciation of it." The same year, in connection with other members of the mission, he visited Ho-chien Fu and made one long journey into Mongolia.

In 1874 he returned to the United States. Being temporarily employed in the mission rooms in New York he availed himself of the opportunity to continue his studies in Union Theological Seminary, which had been broken off on his appointment to China. In March, 1876, he graduated from the College of Theology of Boston University, and soon afterwards was married and returned to China. I need not detail the labors of his second term of service; preaching, touring and general evangelistic work occupied his time. He always manifested a deep interest in the instruction of children, and he was peculiarly successful in conducting Sunday schools. He took great pains in securing illustrations and helps that would attract the attention and impress the lesson upon the children. He preserved probably the only complete file in existence of the Sunday School Leaves, published by the Peking Committee. For several years he was the superintendent of the Sunday School in our mission, which outgrew the capacity of the chapel, and a second. session had to be held especially for the outside children, and this second school will now have to be again divided; thus every Sabbath brought from six to seven hundred children under Christian instruction.

For six years Dr. Pilcher was stationed at Tientsin. While there, in addition to his regular duties, he filled the position of Vice-Consul about a year. The satisfactory manner in which he discharged the duties of the office was highly commended by the Minister in a despatch to the Secretary of State, in which he wrote: "The Legation regrets exceedingly Mr. Pilcher's resignation. During his incumbency at Tientsin by his energy, tact and good judgment he has rendered valuable service to our interests and to the government, and his departure from the port is universally regretted. And it is with great pleasure that I call the special attention of the Department to the ability and faithfulness with which he has discharged the duties of his official position.'

In 1884 Dr. Pilcher for the second time visited the home land, principally on account of his wife's health. Leaving his family in the United States he returned to China in the autumn of the following year. At the annual meeting of that year he was appointed presiding elder of the Peking district, and also principal of Wiley Institute, which a few years later was reorganized as the Peking University, to which the remaining years of his life were devoted, having been elected president at the first meeting of the Board of Managers. Although for a time he was compelled to devote considerable attention to other duties, henceforth the energies of his life were given to building up the institution with which his name and work will ever be associated. All his previous training and missionary experience gave him peculiar fitness for the difficult task of laying the foundations and planning for the increasing efficiency of the university, where he hoped many of the youth of China would be prepared under the best Christian influence for future usefulness in both Church and State. In his work of teaching he felt the need of suitable text-books in several branches of study. He not only set to work himself to supply the necessary books but to interest others in the work, and many replies to the circular sent out by him for this purpose arrived when he was too ill to attend to them. Thus his influence was not confined to the institution with which he was immediately connected, but was being extended to the work of higher education throughout the empire.

One illustration of his character, which also was one element of his success, was his painstaking attention to the minutest details. He had a genius for systematic and orderly arrangement. Many evidences of this are seen in all the buildings and grounds of the university, in the rooms of the students, the arrangement of the catalogue, the preparation of the programmes for the public entertainments, and the neatness and taste displayed in his publications. But while he gave special thought in this direction his plans were not narrow. He looked forward to the future growth of the university in endowment, buildings, increase of students and spiritual results until it should be worthy of the name given it at its foundation. But he has been called away when it seemed to us he was just prepared for his grandest work. But after all his grandest work was the manliness of his Christian character. It was this that won for him the hearts of his students and impressed upon them the importance of consecration to the noblest purposes of life that made one of them declare that "Dr. Pilcher regarded as not as Chinese children but as his own children." It was this that won the esteem and love of all who knew him intimately,

It is to be regretted that Mr. Davis could not be here on this occasion, but a letter from him, though it was written with the freedom of private correspondence and with no thought of its being made public, bears such a tender tribute to the memory of Dr. Pilcher that I cannot refrain from quoting from it. In it he says, "I would like to write concerning our dear class-mate of early days, our colleague for more than a score of years in this alien land. But our three lives have been lived so much alongside, so intimately related that there is nothing I could say or write but you are familiar with.

Now that he is gone from our midst, our Delaware trio broken, the youngest of the three taken, I realize how much our lives have been intertwined. I can hardly think of an interesting event or pleasant occasion of my life for the last twenty-eight years with which he was not somehow associated. Side by side have lines of our lives. run thus far, and I cannot yet realize that all has ceased, that no more will we hear his voice or see his familiar form. Our lives pass before my vision. I seem to see him again entering a stranger into our class at college; his fraíl, delicate looking body, his active mind, fun-loving spirit, his readiness in recitation, his mastery of all college boy larks, his jolly habit of shaking hands with every class-mate, no matter how often he met them, his ready wit, his endless pranks. I seem to see him as my room-mate the last terms of our college career, or guest in my father's home. College days over we were as intimately associated in Michigan. Through his father's instrumentality I found my way into the Detroit Conference. Again and again I visited him in his father's home, or where he was teaching. Scarcely a month passed without letters between us, until together we were appointed to join you in Peking. I shall never forget my surprise and pleasure when he wrote me from New York city that he had just offered to be one of the six young men Bishop Kingsley had asked for to go to China, nor the pleasure of my dear father over the fact that Pilcher was going with me, and we were to join you in this strange land. He assisted at the only wedding I ever witnessed in my own family. Together we came across Continent and Ocean. There were seven young men and one lady together in that company. Two sleep their long sleep, three have left the field and only Plumb and I remain, and a quarter of a century has not passed.

Of our early career in China I need speak but briefly. It is all familiar to you. You will remember the wonderful facility, ease and accuracy with which he acquired the spoken language. How those early years rise before my memory now! Again we are together during our first summer's wanderings among the mountains along

the line of the Great Wall for more than a thousand li. The wild roads, the numberless and often swollen streams, the wretched inns-bad eggs and bitter oat-meal. The delight with which we wandered over the Mongol plain alive with its strange nomadic life; its herds of cattle, droves of horses, flocks of sheep and roving camels. At Kalgan we met Gilmour for the first time. And now McIlvaine, Gilmour and Pilcher lie sleeping in the land to which they all consecrated their superior talents. McIlvaine on the quiet hill-side at Chinan Fu, Gilmour here at Tientsin and our dear colleague west of Peking between his own first born and your darling children. Again I am travelling with him on many a shorter trip about Tsunhua, Ho-chien and Paoting Fu. Ever to be remembered incidents come back without my bidding; friendly discussions arising out of the fact that one heard, many sounds and the other saw many things, unheard by one and unseen by the other, for one was short of sight and the other dull of hearing.

He was at my side when I was married, and in my home he and his wife spent their first weeks together in China.

To us he was the methodical man of detail, our ready preacher in Chinese, efficient interpreter and accurate conference secretary. Of late years the growing preacher in Chinese was absorbed in the one work for which he seemed best adapted. That called out all his energies, quietly translating or preparing book after book for school use; working and planning for a greater future our school work, he himself promising increasing usefulness. How well I remember his saying on his last return from the United States, 'I have come back to give twenty years of hard work to China.' Eight years have passed away, and in the zenith of promise, in the midst of his years, his higher call came. He has answered to his new name in the roll-call before his Master's throne. His short life over, work done, rest entered upon. God takes the will to work for him as work accomplished and rewards in the fulness of His love. We are left behind; we cannot help our tears when we think or try to talk of him. His memory will ever be precious to us. School-mate friend of early days and colleague of these long years. We will often long for a grasp of the quiet hand, or the sound of the voice forever still.

As for his work God has some plan which will become plain by and by. Rather the work was God's. To this worker he has said, Enough, come up higher;' God will look after the future workers. Let us seek His will and do His bidding."

Dr. Pilcher had not been in robust health for the past two or three years, and was preparing to visit the United States next year for purposes of change and rest. During the summer he felt it