increasing brightness of manifestation, when even the world, in which they were performed, shall have sunk into chaos and death; and in the life of their actions, they themselves will live.

II. They live, secondly, in the life of affectionate memory, and in the beatings of grateful hearts. This is a life which the unrighteous have forfeited. "Infamy doth kill." The words of the poet are the words of soberness, and are confirmed the words of scripture. "The memory of the just is blessed; but the name of the wicked shall rot." We all try to forget a bad man as fast as we are able; for to remember him, gives us nothing but pain. And even when it is impossible to forget him, his memory is coupled with condemnation and death. His character is dead, and we mourn over it; his reputation is lost forever, and with it he dies again, he suffers the second death. But over the grave of the good man, endearing recollections, fond regrets, and tributes of honour and love, spring up like flowers, though not like flowers to wither, but to bloom and breathe out their odours perpetually, borrowing and bestowing life. His kindness, his benevolence, his uprightness never die; nor do they permit his name to die; they embalm it, and keep it fresh, with spices more precious and more effectual than the old Egyptians used; for what is the embalming of the body, to the embalming of the spirit the preservation of a useless, untenanted

frame of dust in houses or catacombs, to the lively presence of worth and beauty and love in the sacred home of the heart. The second death hath no power over such as have kept their names alive, and their characters from reproach or oblivion, by securing the attachment and veneration of those whom they leave behind them.

III. But there is a yet more important sense in which the righteous live, and are exempted from the power of the second death. In the favour, and presence, and glory of God, they live. In endless joy, and happiness, and improvement they live. They live with their risen and ascended Saviour, whom they followed, and in whom they slept. Like him, they died once; and like him death hath no more dominion over them. They have cast off the weeds of the flesh, and in the courts of the kingdom of Heaven they have put on the garments of light and immortality.

Mourn, then, for the righteous dead. Mourn that you are bereaved of their society; mourn that you have lost their counsel, their presence, their sympathy. But mourn not as those who have no hope. Remember that on such the second death hath no power. In their good actions, in their precious memory, in the resurrection of the just, they live, they live the life everlasting. They are safe; the first death did not harm them, and they can die no more. They are safe; "their souls are in the hand of God, and there can no torment touch them."

Such should be our mourning, my friends and brethren of this society, over one of our distinguished members, who has lately departed from among us, and from this mortal life.

The good are given to us for our example. It is proper that their characters should be impressed upon our minds; that their peculiar excellences should be delineated; so that we may be excited and aided to imitate them.

The character of our deceased brother belongs to the public. It belongs to the city of which he was a native; to the state and to the nation which in high capacities he served so well. It belongs also to us; for as a religious man and a Christian he had joined himself with us, and given us a peculiar claim to his virtues. There is another hand which could better have pourtrayed them for you than I can; there are other lips by which they could have been described to you more justly and with a more persuasive force. He who on account of his early intimacy with Mr. Gore, as well as seniority of office in this church, would have been the person to draw his character, and hold up its excellence before you, is prevented from discharging the sad duty by the providence of God. By the kind assistance, however, of other friends of the deceased, I shall endeavour to supply, as far as possible, what I feel to be my own disqualifications, and almost entire deficienof personal knowledge.

cy

CHRISTOPHER GORE was born in Boston, in the year 1758. His father was a highly respectable mechanic, who by a course of honest and skilful industry had acquired a large property. At the breaking out of the troubles between this and the mother country, he went to Halifax; as he was favourably disposed toward the government under which he had always lived. But he afterwards returned to Boston, and died here in the year '95.

The son received his early instruction at the public schools of this town. He then entered Harvard University, and was graduated there in 1776, at the early age of seventeen. Soon afterwards he commenced the study of law with the late Judge Lowell, and continued with him through his whole period of study, both as a pupil and a member of his family. This was a situation combining moral and intellectual advantages, such as are rarely offered to any young man; and Mr. Gore was able to appreciate and improve them. When he entered on the practice of his profession, he came to it not only with a mind prepared by a judicious course of study, but with the enviable recommendation of an uncorrupted youth.

He rose rapidly in public esteem, as a sound lawyer, as a politician, in the most generous sense of that word, as a true patriot, and as an honest man. He stood among the first at the bar, where his practice was extensive and lucrative. His fellow citizens manifested the regard in which they held him, and the confidence which they placed in him, by sending him, with Hancock and Samuel Adams,

to the Convention of this State, which considered the adoption of the national constitution. This was before he had attained the age of thirty.

In 1789, Mr. Gore was appointed by President Washington, United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. He was the first person who held the office; and coming to it in times of great trouble and distraction, he had many serious difficulties to encounter in discharging its duties.* But he encountered them with the manly intrepidity and unbending rectitude, for which he was always remarkable, and so he overcame them; and it was probably his conduct in this critical situation which obtained for him the appointment from the Chief Magistrate to be one of the Commissioners under the fourth article of Jay's treaty, to settle our claims for spoliations. The appointment was made in 1796; and Mr. Gore's colleague was the late celebrated William Pinkney.

While in England, Mr. Gore secured by his gentlemanly deportment and amiable qualities the respect and attachment of all who became known to him; at the same time that by his assiduous attention to business, his profound knowledge of commercial law, his laboured arguments, and his personal influence, he recovered sums to a vast amount, for citizens of the United States.†

He remained abroad in the public service till 1804. When his friend, Mr. King, then our minister at the court of London, returned to this country in 1803, he left Mr. Gore there as chargé d'affaires; in