American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1873-11-15

could be relieved, and human sorrow
assuaged, his philanthropic efforts must
know no surcease. He girded up again
his loins, and took his pilgrim-statf in
hand, and set forth to encounter the perils
of disease and death in their most fright
full forms.
He went forth alone in his sublime cru
SADIE against the dreaded plague, the ter
ror and scourge of Europe. He knew
the danger, and would not suffer even his
faithful servant, the companion of all his
former travels, to share it. He explored
the laZarets and hospitals of Marseilles,
Rene, Naples, Valetta, Zante, Smyrna
and Constantinople. He daringly pene-
trated pest houses and infected caravan
series. He seemed to bear a charmed
life He braved the fever demon in his
lair, and came forth unscathed. To this
result his abstemious diet doubtless con
tributed Some dried biscuit and cup
of milk or cold water was his usual fare.
As the browning act of his enthusiastic
self-sacritice, Howard resolved to sail in
an infected vessel, that he might undergo
the strictest quarantine, and leave Il record
of his experience, IN case he should not
survive, for the benefit of the medical
profession in England. The plague was
in the vessel. 1t was also attacked by
Barbary pirates. Our hero fought as
valiantly as he had encountered danger
in the fever hospital. He endured liv-
ing martyrdom of forty days while quar-
antined in the laZaretto of Venice, parch-
ed with fever, racked with pain. But
these sufferings were nothing to the pang
caused by letters from England, announc-
ing the mental alteration of his son, the
result of life of vicious indulgence.
The fever of his body abated, but the
barbed sorrow ranked in his heart to his
dying day. On his return to England
he found his son raving maniac. Such
he lived for ten years longer, and such he
died.
Howard found no consolation in the
proposition to erect a monument in his
honor. He pcremptorily declined this act
of public homage. His noblest monu-
ment was in the grateful hearts of fifty
five poor debtors whom he liberated with
the money subscribed.
Though his stricken heart returned
ever from all its wanderings to the dear
home scenes of Cardington, he was not
permitted there to end his days. Bearing
his crushing load Of sorrow, the old man
turned resolutely once more to his great
life work. He designed visiting Russia,
Poland, Hungary, Turkey, Egypt and the
Barbary States. But his work was we'll
nigh done. He seemed to have a pre-
sentiment of his death. To a friend he
wrote: You will probably never see me
again; but, be that as it may, it is not a
matter of serious concern to me whether
1 lay down my life in Turkey, in Egypt,
in Asia Minor, or elsewhere. The way to
heaven from Grand Cairo is as near as
from London" Like the world of that
dauntlcss Christian mariner, Sir Hum
phrey Gilbert, is this, as in the storm and
darkness he was heard to cry, Fear not,
shipmen, heaven is as near by water as by
landi" Or like the older world of the
monk Jeromei eft de HierosOlymis ct de
Britannia equaliter patel aula cplestis."
Mot from Jerusalem alone
The path TO heaven ascends;
As near, as sure, as straight the way
That leads TO the celestial day,
From furthest climes extends,
Frigid or torrid zone"
From st. Petersburg, Howard went to
Moscow, where, as if in anticipation of
his near departure, he renewed his solemn
covenant with God. He was greatly in
terested in the condition of the Russian
conscripts the mortality among whom
was appalling. Their sufferings excited
his deepest commiseration. To visit their
environments, and, if possible, to better
their condition, he sailed down the Dneiper
to Cherson, Tartar town near its mouth.
Here he was called to visit a young lady
i'll of an infectious fever. He went-rid-
ing four and twenty miles by night through
pitilesS winter rain storm. lie caught
the infection. He soon felt that his race
was run. But death had no terrors to his
soul. at is an event. he said "to which
| always look with cheerfulneSs; and, be
assured, the subject is more grateful to me
than any other. Suffer no pomp," he
continued, ''to be used at my funeral, nor
let any monument be ever made to mark
where l am laid, but lay me quietly in the
earth, place a sun dial over my grave, and
let me be forgotten" Vain request! His
name was too indelibly engraven on the
heart of the world to be ever erased. In
his assured faith, and like the setting sun
calmly sinking to rest, John Howard died
on the Goth of January, 1870.
The tdings of his death caused thrill
of sympathy and sorrow throughout all
Europe, but the deepest sympathy and
the bitterest sorrow were doubtless in the
hearts of the innumerable prisoners whose
miseries he had soothed and whose lives
he had blessed On the base of the
statue, erected to his memory in that no.
BILE mausoleum of England's glorious
dead-St. PauPs Cathedral-is recorded
grateful cOuntry's estimation of his
worth
"In every part of the civilized world
which he traversed to reduce the sum of
human misery, from the throne to the
dungeon, his name was mentioned with
respect, gratitude, and admiration. X \
He trOd an open but unfreQuented path to
immortality in the ardent but uninter-
mitted exercise of Christian charity may
this tribute to his fame excite an emula-
ton of his truly glorious achievements"
As we drop a tear over his foreign
grave, where. after life's long toll, he
sleepeth well, let us gather up the lessons
of that life and write them on our hearts
for ever. May they lead all who read his
story to acts of beneficence and self
sacrifice for others, and to an imitation,
in spirit at least, of that life by which he
glorfied humanity!
Towards highest praise is that he was
a sincere and humble Christian. No less
potent principle than the constraining
love of Christ could have led him to for
sake ease and fortune, to toll on alone
and in obscurity, to encounter prejudice,
misconception, and opposition and to
espouse danger and death No self
seeker was he. SelfabncgatiOn and self
forgetfuness were the characteristics of
his life.
Although a man of grave and earnest
disposition, there was nothing austcre in
his piety The brave are always tender
His thoughtful love for little children
was evinced by the invariable hamper of
foreign toys that accompanied his return
from his many wanderings to England.
He had a shrewd, practical method, too,
in his inspection of prisons. His eager
ness was incomprehensible to the jailer
mind, as he accurately measured the
length breadth, and height of the cehs,
examined the quality of the rations, and
drew forth pair of scales from his
pocket to ascertain if the quantity tailed