FUNERAL OF REV. DR. HILL.

THE funeral services of the late Rev. Dr. Hill took place on Saturday, February 4, 1871, at 11, A. M., in the Church of the Second Parish, over which the deceased had officiated as pastor for more than forty years. Among those in attendance were many of the older citizens, the clergymen of the city, and distinguished gentlemen from abroad.

The arrangements for the funeral were made by a committee of the Parish, consisting of Messrs. J. W. Wetherell, F. B. Rice and L. Barnard.

The decorations of the church for the occasion, with laurel and white flowers, were very tasteful, but plain and simple, in accordance with the expressed wish of the deceased, that there should be no display. A star of laurel, enclosing a wreath of roses, ornamented the recess in the rear of the pulpit, and the four columns supporting the recess were twined with laurel. The pulpit was beautifully festooned with evergreens, interspersed with callas and wreaths, stars and crosses of rare exotics, the central ornament being a floral crown resting on a cross. The catafalque was entirely covered with laurel, and in front was suspended a rich floral wreath surrounding a cross. At either end were stands of bouquets. On the top of the coffin rested a rich and elegant collection of fragrant flowers, comprising a crown, an anchor and wreaths.

The pall bearers, eight in number, selected from the older members of the parish, were: John P. Kettell, Stephen Salisbury, John Barnard, Charles A. Hamilton, Dr.. George Chandler, F. H. Kinnicutt, Walter Bigelow, and Charles H. Whiting.

After a solemn voluntary upon the organ, and an invocation of the divine blessing by Rev. R. R. Shippen, appropriate selections

from scripture were read by Rev. Joseph Allen, D.D., of Northborough. The choir of the church sang the hymn besinning

"Guide me, O thou great Jehovah."

Prayer was then offered by Rev. Mr. Hall, after which the hymn,

"He has gone to his God, he has gone to his home;

No more amid peril and error to roam,"

was chanted by the choir.

Rev. EDWARD E. HALE, of Boston, made the following address:

ADDRESS OF MR. HALE.

I cannot but feel that I should best meet the requisitions of this occasion, if, instead of attempting in my own words any account of the loving and effective life which our dear friend led in the midst of us here, I should read to you his own review of that life, as I hold it in my hand, in the address which so many of you heard him deliver here on the fortieth anniversary of his own ordination. In the unaffected statement here made of his own work, as he saw his home change from the village which he found it to the crowded city of to-day, he has given us such a picture as I cannot draw of the faithfully discharged duty of a conscientious, energetic, unambitious Christian Minister.

I have a right indeed to appropriate other words of his, words which he used here so lately, in speaking to you of Judge Allen:

"I have come, not to eulogize him, for he of all men, had no tolerance of the language of empty praise; not to speak of the dead; for they only are dead who have passed away and left no memorial behind. I have come to speak of life, not death; for he only lives whose influence still survives, and who has already reached that other life, so inconceivably grand that it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive what God hath prepared for them. who, having kept the faith and obtained the promises, have already entered on its enjoyment."

As we surround his silent form to-day we cannot but feel that in such words he still speaks to us.

In the presence in which I stand, I know very well that I need

not attempt in any detail the history of that faithful ministry in which he has been and done so much for the people of this town. He was born in Harvard, on the 20th of June, in the year 1800. He was fitted for Harvard College at the Academy in Groton, now known as the Lawrence Academy, and graduated at Cambridge, in the year 1822. Those who were fellow pupils with him at school and in college, still recall traits of character which showed themselves even in boyhood, which have distinguished the current of his life. Even at school, he was a peacemaker among his companions, and the earnestness of his purpose commanded at that early age their regard and respect. After leaving college, and after a short service as teacher in Leicester Academy, he went through the Theological course at the Divinity School at Cambridge. He preached in your pulpit immediately after, this being, I think, the first parish to which he ministered. The congregation sent to him an invitation to become the colleague of Dr. Bancroft, and he accepted their call. To do so, he declined similar invitations which he received from the Unitarian Churches of Baltimore and Washington. He was ordained as your minister on the 28th of March, 1827, and in honorable and happy service here, he has spent his life, how well, you know.

It is the special dignity of such a life in our profession, if it have passed purely and wisely, that it leaves but little of detail such as belongs to the biography of the more noisy men in the world's history. Dr. Hill, certainly, was not the man who sought for any praise of men or cared to leave behind him any record, but that he had faithfully ministered to the needs of the people around him. Yet if you will look back on forty-two years of life thus spent, you may be surprised to see what is the majestic weight of the silent and steady power of such a consecrated man. You will see this whether you trace his work in the community at large, or listen to the echoes of his voice from this pulpit, or ask these who hear me what are their memories of the spirit of the man and how he has unfolded in them the germs of their own noblest life.

To speak of the work which fell on him as a Christian minister caring for all the interests of this town, I ought to say that he had no sympathy with the notion that would limit the service of a minister to the circle of any particular congregation, while