one of the most charming places in the world for a young person to visit.

But we have omitted the two most remarkable names, Miss Fiske and Dr. Twitchell. They were persons who would have been distinguished in any community, and the greater and more enlightened the place the more distinguished would they have been. Miss Fiske was one of those rare women who with great moral, intellectual and religious gifts have the power of infusing their own spirit into the minds of those around them. She was a most able and successful teacher of girls, and they who were once under her care carried with them through life a love and admiration for her which amounted almost to reverence. When we met her, she was a confirmed invalid, of a frail, delicate, and nervous organization, reminding us of Dr. Channing in these respects as well as in the wonderful spiritual vitality and moral power, which seemed always to be going from her to inspire and strengthen others. She was mildly, strongly Orthodox, but held to her sentiments with the grandest catholicity of feeling, and found a bond of union with all devout Christions, not in similarity of views on theology, but in a common sympathy with Christ and the desire to extend his kingdom through the world. Dr. Twitchell struck us as a man of greater genius than any physician that we have ever known. He was overflowing with humor. He seemed sometimes to play with disease as a cat plays with a mouse which she is certain to destroy. He had studied the human body in all its parts and relations, sick or well, so profoundly, that he seemed to look through a patient intuitively and to see in an instant the weak point. While he was amusing the sufferer with the queerest stories, he was really searching him through and through, or revealing to him the course by which alone he could regain his health. He was a total-abstinence man in regard to tobacco as well as all intoxicating drinks. He was often found in front of a hotel or a barber's shop, where he was most likely to meet persons who were in danger, and where with infinite humor and by the strangest stories bearing upon their case

he would amuse, instruct and save them. Once in the cabin of a steamboat on the Long Island Sound, he engaged in a conversation of this kind with an old sea captain on the use of tobacco, and was so entertaining that the passengers gathered round him listening with the profoundest interest, and years afterwards he had letters from some of them saying that from that hour they had never touched the pernicious weed. He was, like most men of genius, sometimes depressed in spirits, though on the whole very happy. He was a man of a large and generous nature. He performed most of the great surgical operations within a radius of forty miles from Keene. But no man ever carried with him a warmer heart or more tender sympathies. And if anything were wanting in his apparently off-hand and unstudied way of speaking and acting, it was more than made up for in his home by the delicate, refined, and punctilious care with which their extended charities were administered and their liberal. hospitalities presided over by his wife. Nor would this notice of him be complete without mentioning his sister and niece, Mrs. and Miss Carter, whose house was a sort of hospital for his patients from abroad, and who were as admirable in their sphere as he was in his.

In this spirited and intelligent community, for seventy-four years, Mr. Prentiss was an active, and during most of the time, an influential citizen. He and his very interesting family had their full share in contributing to the social enjoyments, the literary and intellectual culture, and the Christian improvement of the place. He had a strong proclivity for controversy. He belonged especially to the church militant. He fought a good fight. He loved nothing better than to enter the lists on the side of Temperance, of Liberal Christianity, and of Freedom, and in the Lyceum days, he and his old neighbor and antagonist, Dr. Barstow, did much to keep up the interest in public discussion on the subjects then uppermost in the public mind. He gave his life to the best interests of society. Like almost all men of very strong convictions, he had also strong personal prejudices, and on that account sometimes did great injustice to himself and others.

But he was a man of unquestioned integrity, of public spirit even when great sacrifices were required, the friend and promoter of important public enterprises, and in private life a man of unsullied purity. He lived more than ninty-five years, with his interest in great subjects unabated and his mind apparently unimpaired. Within a fortnight of his death we received from him, directed in a large, firm hand, a newspaper containing an article written by him with characteristic comments on the election of a bishop for the Episcopal Church in this State, and with a kind reference to an article in our Magazine.

We have dwelt long and with a peculiar satisfaction on this subject. Fires, murders, mercantile dishonor, defalcations in incorporated bodies, and political profligacy, in low and high places, fill our daily papers with their disheartening and demoralizing details. It gives us refreshment, strength and hope to turn from such accounts to the pure and loving homes, the refined, educated, faithful families, truthful, noble examples, the quiet country towns and villages, where morals and religion are still found in their simplicity and integrity, and in their genuine enthusiasm and ardor.

MISS LUCY OSGOOD.

Died in Medford, on her birthday, the 17th of June, in the house where she was born and had spent her life, Miss Lucy Osgood, aged eighty-two. She was the daughter of Rev. David Osgood, D.D., a man of mark and power in his generation. She and her sister, Mary, were educated by their father in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and in the higher branches of education pursued in those days, especially in history, metaphysics, and theology. When he died, fifty years ago, they kept up their studies with increasing interest and diligence through the modern languages, especially the German, and the whole range of ancient and modern literature, entering earnestly into all the new questions of the day. And all the while, in their own home and neighborhood, no kindly or domestic duty was forgotten or neglected. The intimacy between the sisters was probably as loving and per

fect as is ever allowed to exist between two human beings. About fifteen years ago the elder sister died, but Miss Lucy always had some dear friend or friends with her as permanent inmates of her home. And her interest in the new thought and life of the day was never diminished. Her affections were always young. Her wit never lost its sparkle. In the short visits which she sometimes paid to her friends, it seemed as if a gentle illumination of catholic thought and a warm atmosphere of Christian love had come with her into their homes. Her letters were the best that we have ever seen in manuscript, and we trust that some means may be found by which selections from them may be published. Excepting Mrs. Ripley, she was probably the most learned woman that we have ever known, and, like Mrs. Ripley, she lived so much in the affections, and there was such an absence of display and such a womanly kindliness and modesty in her life and conversation, that, though we felt that she was wonderfully intelligent, it was only when we stopped to think about it that we realized the great extent and minute accuracy of her knowledge.

No better example than hers can be given of the advantages of the higher education in woman. Her life was one of the most useful and happy that we have ever known. The range of her social and intellectual sympathies seemed to be absolutely without limits. No one can ever say how far her influence extended, or how far it reaches to-day. It would be saying little, we think, to say that in her native town of Medford, during the last fifty years, no man has been so useful, or done so much for its highest interests, as this modest, unselfish, happy woman.

We add a notice of her by one who is thankful to acknowledge her obligations to her for a friendship which was recognized as a rare privilege and blessing by herself, her parents, and her children.

To one who did not know the loved and honored friend who has just passed away from us, I should like to say a few words that might show what a true woman without the usual marked routine of duties may become. Singularly free from all claims of family, she

made that very privation the means of drawing within her influence a circle of friends to whom she was, in the highest sense of the word, a benefactor. From her father she probably inherited the acuteness and grasp of mind which, added to her enlightened toleration and wide sympathy, gave her the wisdom which was indeed from above, and which every year seemed to grow more tender and true. For many years she and her sister, whom she loved to consider her superior, made the home which their father had left a centre of influences whose outer circles will never be known; and when the sister was taken, many years before her, she only, while her heart always ached for the life-long companion, sent her affections farther out, and made other interests her own. The studies which they had delighted to pursue together, far beyond middle life, she still prosecuted alone. Her hands were never idle, and her thoughts were always occupied in the best things. She loved to quote Dr. Johnson, who speaks of the duty of "keeping our friendships in repair," and she acted up to his advice; for in many cases she has been the friend of three generations, transferring from parent to child the rich inheritance of her care and love. With the keenest sense of justice, she had a sympathy as keen; with most decided convictions, she had the largest toleration; and she had also that rare gift, a high sense of the claims of others. But, above all, she had the spiritual sense that quickens all other powers, and that grew and stregthened with her advancing years. She was gifted with an almost intuitive perceptlon of what was best in book or character, and her power of thought and expression was eloquence itself. What she had read seemed to be to her a posession forever; for she had learned to read when books were comparatively few, and were "inwardly digested" as well as read: and she had the power of awakening in the young an enthusiasm for the best things, for which many generations may yet be her debtHer candor was remarkable, and I doubt if any of her friends ever loved her the less for differing from her. Her faculties were kept bright by use till the very last, and then, as she had long earnestly desired, death came to her unheralded, and bore her to that great company of friends who had gone before, and to Him whose faithful servant and loving child she had been for eighty-two years. Of near kindred she has left none to mourn her departure; but very many rise up and call her blessed. Her mental powers were rare, but her best gifts are in a measure within the reach of all who seek to lead a useful life. What her hand found to do she

ors.