The Portland daily press., 1877-01-12
w. Davis of Greenfield,

The following loving and apprecative words
from correspondent of the Christian Register
will find warm and sympathetic response
from all our readers who were SO fortunate as
to know Mr.. Davis. 1t is brief description OF
bright. kindly, useful life, which has left the
world better and whose memory is a constant
benediction:
When, to-day, the letter came bringing the
news of Mr. Davis death, host of quick
throngng memories brought back his person
atty so wildly that it was hard to believe the
change we call death had come to him who
seems SO living IN our thought. Again it is
Christmas eve in the little Greenfield church.
The Christmas tree, fairy spectacle of light
and CLEAN and color, is not SO bright as the
children's eyes, that shine with wide-open won
der and rapture. The organ peals out the glad
est of Christmas CAROLS and the face of the
organist, radiant with sympathetic gladness,
beams down on the children as if the presiding
genius of the festival.
The wanderer comes back from across the
ocean, and the "Home, Sweet Home deli
cately blended in the opening voluntary goes
SO straight from the organists kind heart to
that for which it is meant, that the ~ played
that for you this morning" after service, is
hardly needed. The funeral train goes bearing
the dead for the last time into the old church,
or the bride, who is going out from our quiet
village into the world, stands at the altar, and
Guo OISdD, dluOSt uumdu uuueE his lOVl0g
touch, breatheS out music that steals into the
heart as the truest expression of the feelings of
the hour. 1t is Sunday. the exchange is
good man, doubtless. yet his sermon profteth
little; but though all else fail, the music is sure
to bear your spirit heavenward. The HYMNS
meening is deepened and spirtualized as it
breathes into life under the organist's inspired
Interpretation. How many hymns we shall
never hear again without thinking of Mr..
Davis.
Apoor man or woman has fallen into trouble
or a young man needs advice and help, and
whose purse, and time, and heart, so at their
service as Mr.. Davis? Telling you the story
afterwards, QUICK tears dim the kindly, merry
eyes behind the specIacles, and he turns it off
with laugh at his own "soft- heartedness.
A young girl is fighting life's battle single
handed She must be looked after, and asked
| to dinner, and have her life softened and beau
titled by being taken into the kindness, and
courtesies and bright, refined atmosphere of mis-
home. Many people will always associate
some Of their happiest hours with the dear old
brown house under the sweeping elms on Fed
eral street. The house may fall into strang-
ers hands now, other kings may arise who
know not Joseph but some of us will never
pass it without a heart-drawing towards its
very bricks for the sake of the days and the
friends that will never return.
| We were almost as certain to see the Davis
horse at sick persons door as the doctors
liz fact, it was matter for general congratu-
lation when Mr.. Davis, having forgiven or for
| gotten the advantages the last Dick or Jim in
varlably took of his eniency, decided to buy
another horse. 1t meant drives for sick people,
and people who could not afford horses, up and
down the picturesque mountain and valley
| roads around Greenfield; it meant errands done
and weary feet given "a lift" and jelly carried
| to this sick room, and grapes to that, and loads
of things taken to the poor.
Endless are the pictures memory furnishes to
remind us of our friends thoughtfulness for
others, his quick and kindly humor, his gener-
GUS social qualities, his ready helpfulness, his
enthusiastic, poetic nature, responding to, APP
preciative of, the best things in life, nature,
art
And now the end has come. The organ
| stands mute The hand of its master who ioy-
ed 1t so well, who chung to it when failing
health and advancing years made his devotion
a too great exposure, is still and cold In the
house
"where used to be
Old-fashioned hospitality
! silence and sorrow have taken the place of gen.
ial laugh and kindly greeting With the going
| out of our friends life goes out much bright
ness from many lives. His memory will not
| soon fade. Such men are rare in a world that
is apt to be too cold selfish, matter-of-fsct. One
| can easily see that when Mr.. Davis played the
| organ will be tradition in the Greenfield
church, even when the youngest Sunday School
| children that have sung with him are grown
| old men and women.
| We know little of that other world of which
we talk so much; but if there be anywhere a
place for TENDER kindly hearts, very humble
with sense of their human weakness, but
| who loved much there our friend must be,
for each goes to ''his own place."
30 friend! if thought and sense avail not
To know thee henceforth as thou art,
That all is well with thee forever
| trust the instincts of my heart.
| ''Thine be the quiet habitations,
| Thine the green pastures, blossom-sown,
And smiles of sanity recognition
AS sweet and tender as thy own
| P. THoRNE.
/ Cincinnati Too & 1879