affection of the heart. His step became less firm and elastic and he began to show the effects of old age and arduous labor. Still, he lost none of his zeal. During 1874, in addition to his regular missionary work, he officiated as chaplain at the Fitchburg house of correction and preached there fifty-two Sundays without omitting a single one.

Through the courtesy of Rev. Edwin R. Hodgman, for many years scribe of the Middlesex Union Association, of which Mr. Trask was a member, I have a copy of the following letter:

FITCHBURG, Dec. 29, 1874.

Dear Bro. Hodgman: Your letter I read with interest and sympathy. I am profoundly impressed with your toilsome labors and surpassing self-denial in long serving the association. We have few "likeminded." I am an old man. My compeers, dear honorable men, are falling on every hand and I am daily admonished of my own doom. I hardly expect to live to the coming March, but if the association will take the risk of my being alive on the earth at that time, I welcome them here and will stand in open door and say, "ab imo pectore""Come in, come in, ye beloved of the Lord." I am frail, I am crushed with labors, but the Lord permitting I shall be with you at Ayer, the pill box, next Tuesday, and confer, perhaps, still further. Pray for me, brother, that I may do a little more good. Give my poor face (enclosed) to some dear soul that loves the Saviour and loves reforms.

Rev. Mr. Hodgman, who now resides in Townsend, adds the following:

This was the last letter I received from Brother Trask. He did not meet with us at Ayer. He died about four weeks after it was written. I have copied it because I wish to keep the original.

About the 10th of January, 1875, Mr. Trask experienced a sudden and quite severe exacerbation of his heart difficulty and was confined to his room until his death, January 25. He was engaged at the time in the preparation of a tract-"Spurgeon and his Cigar." The great

London divine's use and public defense of tobacco had greatly disturbed Mr. Trask, and his earnest desire was to live long enough to see this tract printed and distributed, and have a copy in Dr. Spurgeon's hands. He worked on it as much as he could and was reading the second proof at the time of his death. The tract was soon after printed uncompleted exactly as he left it and is very keen and just.

As far as other matters were concerned he felt ready to die. "During his last illness he expressed no desire to recover, but rather an anxiety to depart. He thought he had reached such an age that he would no longer be useful, but rather a burden to his friends. Better for the world had no worse men than George Trask lived in it.” And yet, towards the last of his illness, when some slight signs of improvement were manifested, he exclaimed to one of his daughters, "It looks, child, as if the Lord was going to let me get up again. If he does, I'll take up my battle-axe and go at it again." He was conscious of having been a martyr in a good and righteous, but unpopular cause, and often made the remark, "I'm not so great a man as Martin Luther, but I have the same martyr spirit."

On the morning of January 25, 1875, he was seated in his easy chair, reading a book brought to him by his daughter Ruth. It was Huxley's "Lay Sermons," and he enjoyed it very keenly. A few minutes before noon he arose from his chair and looked into the mirror. He went back to his chair, reopened the book he had been reading, threw up both arms and almost instantly expired. His strong religious faith was maintained to the very end. Only a few minutes before his death, speaking of the victory over death, he said, "How do we get this victory? Through sinful man? No. Through the church? No. Thanks be to God, through our Lord Jesus Christ! That's it! that's it!"

His funeral was held January 28, at the Rollstone church, the pastor, Rev. Leverett W. Spring, conducting the services. Revs. A. P. Marvin of Lancaster, George Allen of Worcester, Edwin R. Hodgman and others took part, and a large number of his friends from far and near were present. The burial was in the family lot in Laurel Hill cemetery.

In the course of his eulogy on Mr. Trask's life and work, Rev. Mr. Spring said:

Our friend will be known as the great anti-tobacco agitator, but he was a reformer before he made war on tobacco. The character of a reformer needs original personal traits, and Mr. Trask had these to an extent that might be called eccentricities. To judge of his character one must be thoroughly acquainted with his whole life. He belonged to the givers rather than the receivers. His desire was to lessen the sufferings of mankind.

No words were wasted by Mr. Trask in his published tracts. They flew, like the arrow, straight to the mark. In his analysis of character there was a sort of ideality. It was marked by justness, penetrating as it did into the very springs of life and thought. Towards younger men he showed nothing of jealousy, but rather the heartiest applause of everything well done. Mr. Trask has shown the possession of the greatest courage, such as few men attain to, in undertaking this great reform, unpopular as it is and was. By and by, if not now, men will put upon that head the chaplet of heroism. No man can be efficient in any reform and not arouse hostility. In the end it will be shown that he has started a war that shall tell of power that has been and power that is. He died gloriously.

Rev. A. P. Marvin in his brief tribute said:

The tendency of reform is to embitter the reformer; but the spirit of George Trask grew sweeter and sweeter as he grew older.

The following just and fitting memorial to the character, life and work of Rev. George Trask was entered upon the records of the Middlesex Union Association, at a meeting held in Fitchburg, March 8, 1875:

It having pleased God, our Savior, to call to a higher service in Heaven, our beloved brother, Rev. George Trask, a member of this association, we, his associates and fellow-laborers in the ministry, do hereby express our conviction that he was a true man of God, endowed with great force of intellect, clearness of vision and strength of purpose; a man renewed by the Holy Spirit and ordained a preacher of righteousness of singular directness and power; a real philanthropist, pure in heart and life, liberal, genial, tenacious of his own views, but charitable toward all men, magnanimous, patient under scorn and reproach, distinguished for the love that is "not easily provoked," but "endureth all things;" a man of strong faith, who walked with God in daily communion and fellowship, called by the Master to a work of reform in which he showed rare devotion to principle, a spirit of noble self-sacrifice, and a dauntless courage and heroism in the support of an unpopular cause, and in which he died with his hand still grasping the sword of truth; a man whose growing spirituality and loyalty to Christ have been more and more manifest as he drew near the end, and whose tender, fraternal spirit has been a source of joy to us all.

To him the translation brings unspeakable gain; to us it brings deprivation and loss, but not tears; for we shall gather inspiration from his example to finish our course with joy, and the ministry which we have received of the Lord Jesus.

We tender to the family of our departed brother our sympathy and our congratulations-our sympathy for the pain which results from the loss of his presence and the aroma of his piety; our congratulations that he has won the rest and the crown.

EDWIN R. HODGMAN, Scribe.

Let us close this paper with an epitaph suggested by John Pierpont, the poet. Riding in the cars from Brattleboro, Vt., one Monday morning, Mr. Pierpont and Mr. Trask were fellow-passengers. "What did you do yesterday?" asked Mr. Pierpont. "I preached," said Mr. Trask, "to Baptist friends in the morning on the text 'Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God,' and showed them they could not glorify God by using tobacco. I addressed three Sabbath schools at noon; showed the boys that tobacco tends to idleness, poverty, strong drink, vice, ill health, insanity and death.

I

preached to the Congregationalists in West Brattleboro in the afternoon on the text 'That which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God;' showed them that men highly esteemed tobacco, but God abhorred it. I lectured in the evening in the town hall to a noble body of young men on the destructive effects of tobacco in manifold respects." The poet uttered an exclamation of surprise, "A prodigious worker!" After musing a moment he said, "I will give you your epitaph.” Then in a Hudibrastic sort of verse, which Mr. Trask could not remember, he said in substance, this: "We have great men enough, philosophers enough, poets enough, geniuses enough, LL. D.'s enough, D. D.'s enough; the world needs workers; here lies one. This is your epitaph."